West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today asked the police to use tact to deal with situations instead of resorting to lathis and bullets. "We have to learn to be tactful and do away with lathis and bullets," Banerjee said today.
Coming just a few hours after some policemen beat up some television journalists in front of a nursing home, the Chief Minister said both the media and the police need each other.

"There must be understanding between the media and the police, one cannot do without the other," Banerjee said. The Chief Minister, who also holds the Home (police) portfolio, said she has already ordered the suspension of the erring officer, who has been accused of highhandedness.

Questioning the motive of Team Anna, Congress today said any campaign by the anti-corruption group against the party in Uttar Pradesh would mean "indirect support to BSP".

"Those who are saying to oppose Congress in UP, they would indirectly support the BSP. It is a clear message that they (Team Anna) want to fight corruption by joining hands with Mayawati in UP. So what kind of fight against corruption is this?" Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi asked.

Team Anna has threatened to campaign against Congress in the forthcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. 

On the Daily Mail: An argument over parking led to a 'completely good and blameless' businessman and his nephew being machine-gunned to death by a drug dealer.

After his car was blocked in by a van, Ayub Khan went to fetch a MAC-10 pistol capable of firing 1,000 rounds a minute. Khan, then only 20, gunned down hotelier Amarjit Singh Tiwana and his nephew Rajinder Singh Tiwana at point-blank range.

He then turned the weapon on Amarjit's daughter Harjinder but did not fire --possibly because the gun had jammed.

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Former Telecom Minister A Raja, who has so far not cross examined any witness in the 2G case trial, is likely to open his defence next week by questioning his former additional private secretary Aseervatham Achary, aprosecution witness, sources said. 

Raja's counsel, at the commencement of trial on November11, had told the court that he would not cross examine the witnesses until CBI files its third chargesheet and makes a statement that their probe in the case was complete. 

Raja, however, had later said that he would cross examine the witnesses when they would depose on government's telecom policy.

This is Shashi Tharoor's take on the Mullaperiyar issue: New dam needed at Mullaperiyar urgently. Read his interview on rediff.com.

(Tharoor is the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram)

Also on the Mullaperiyar dam: The Prime Minister today told Congress leaders from Tamil Nadu that he was "very worried" over incidents of violence in border areas in the state and Kerala over the Mullaperiyar Dam issue. 

He told a delegation of Congress MPs from the state that leaders and people of both states should remain calm and patient till the issue is resolved in an amicable manner. The delegation brought to Singh's attention the impression that the Centre was not doing enough to cool the tempers over the issue.

Parliament updates from our Delhi correspondent. Sivanand Tiwari JDU MP in Rajya Sabha created a flutter by stopping Telecom minister Kapil Sibal from introducing the Copyright Bill as Sibal's son is working for a private company. He cites conflct of interest. Uproar in Rajya Sabha for 10 minutes followed by an adjourment.

The Trinamul Party's answer on how to get bills passed quickly in the Assembly -- free food.

From the Telegraph, Calcutta: The Trinamul Congress has served up a new recipe to get all its MLAs to attend the winter session of the House -- free food.

The party will spend Rs 75,000 per day on average to arrange for food for all its 185 MLAs, their security guards and guests during the 10-day session that started today.

The reason for the gastronomic largesse, Trinamul sources said, is that several important bills will be tabled in the session and the party needs enough MLAs to be present in the House to push them through.  More

Rafaya Sufi tweets: Dawn News reporting that Shahbaz Taseer and Warren Weinstein are being held hostage at the Pak-Afghan border.

Shahbaz Taseer, the son of slain Punjab governor in Pakistan, Salman Taseer, was abducted in August.

Here's the Dec 1, 2008 report on what happened when RGV went on a tour of the Taj hotel immediately after the terror attacks. Read

And this is what RGV said at the time: I happened to be at the Taj by chance. "I have no intention of making a film on the Mumbai terror strikes."

So, here it is. Director Ram Gopal Varma will finally make a film about the 26/11 attacks, an announcement he made three years ago. Varma, 49, aims to capture behind-the-scenes aspects of the terror attack on the Taj Mahal hotel as well as the heroism of the police officials.
 "I am making a film on the attacks of 26/11. 26/11 is one of the dates which no Indian will ever forget. The three-day 24/7 live telecast of the terrorist carnage had people's eyes glued to the TV sets across the world. 

"But my attempt now would be not only to capture on film the physical aspect but also the behind the scenes aspect of what exactly happened from the time Kasab and rest of the team landed on Amar Singh Solanki's trawler in the high seas, till Kasab's heroic capture by the late Tukaram Ombale at Girgaum chowpatty," Varma said in a statement he posted on Twitter.

Update on the Sukhoi crash:

IAF spokesperson Wing Commander Gerard Galway said that both the pilots flying the aircraft ejected in time and landed safely. They have been evacuated and taken to the base for medical attention. The aircraft, which was on a routine mission, had taken off from Lohegaon airbase at 1245 hours. It crashed at 1310 hours.

"A Court of Inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the crash and an IAF team has been rushed to the site of the wreckage," he said in New Delhi. 

This is the third crash of the Russian origin Su-30 fighter planes since they were inducted into the IAF in 1997. Today's crash is the eighth mishap involving IAF fighter aircraft this year. Seven MiG series aircraft had crashed earlier this year.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Tuesday said that the foreign policy would be finalized after the Parliament would give mandate over it, Geo News reported.

Khar was talking to media outside the Parliament building and told the foreign policy is being reviewed in the ongoing Envoys' Conference here. She said the government does not want to spoil its relationships with any key country nor intend to wage war.

More on the International News.

MJ Akbar's piece on media censorship and Kapil Sibal on the Sunday Guardian.

Read 

The government had announced a Rs 1,618 crore package for return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants to the Valley in 2008 but so far no family
has returned. 

"A comprehensive package of Rs 1,618.40 crore has been announced for return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants to the valley in 2008," Minister of State for Home Jitendra Singh informed Lok Sabha today.

The package provides for provision of assistance for housing, transit, accommodation, continuation of cash relief, students' scholarship, employment, financial assistance to agriculturists and horticulturists and waiver of interest on
loans.

Also read on rediff.com: A House for Mr and Mrs Raina

The Congress top brass, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi, today deliberated on the strategy on the Lokpal issue ahead of the meeting of the UPA leaders here.

The meeting was held on a day Singh is holding consultations with UPA allies on the Lokpal issue, the first such exercise after the fiasco over FDI in retail.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Congress president's political secretary Ahmed Patel were present at the Congress core group meeting in which the Lokpal issue was discussed, sources said.

The consultations will be held a day ahead of an all-party meeting convened by the Prime Minister on the ticklish issue.

The Lokpal bill is expected to come up for consideration in the Lok Sabha on December 20, two days ahead of the conclusion of the current session of Parliament.

The Standing Committee report on the Lokpal bill

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is back on the campaign trail in UP today.

Attacking the BSP and the Samajwadi Party, Gandhi said he sought a chance for the Congress to rule Uttar Pradesh and promised to change the state in the next 20 years when people from outside will flock there for jobs. 

"In the past 20 years, what did you get? You trusted SP. What did you get back in return? You trusted BSP. What did you get? (You got) corruption. Now, we are talking about development, we are talking about the future.

"UP can change. This is not difficult. Take it from me in writing. In five years, we can start changing this state and in ten years, people from outside will come here looking for jobs. People will then ask, what is happening in UP...we can
change things easily," he told a political rally here. 

We told you earlier that the rupee reached its all-time low today at Rs 53.29 to a dollar. Read the blog on the Financial Times: When it comes to the rupee, perhaps we should dispense with the term all-time low. It may get a bit repetitive in coming days and weeks.

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Update on the Sukhoi crash: While both the pilots ejected to safety, they are yet to be traced. Efforts are on to find them. They were the only two on board.

Also see this 2009 story on India Today: What's wrong with IAF's Sukhoi?

Here's the status on the Afzal Guru case: The mercy plea of of Mohd Afzal Guru is among 14 other such applications pending decision by President Pratibha Patil.  Replying to an RTI query, the President Secretariat declined to disclose copies of correspondence and file notings related to Guru's clemency petition, saying they were "records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, secretaries and other officers".

The President's office had received a total of 27 mercy pleas, including the one from three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, between 2008 and 2011.

Of them, three were rejected and death sentence to 10 others was commuted to life imprisonment. 14 other pleas were pending decision.  

Here's a tweet by Satish Acharya: The only Guru who has mastered the ART OF LIVING is #Afzal Guru! 

Cricket legend Shane Warne tweeted a picture of his hand looking badly burned after scalding himself cooking breakfast. The Aussie star, engaged to Brit beauty Liz Hurley, put up the pic alongside a plea to followers for tips on how to help heal the wound and got a message of support from his Hollywood buddy Russell Crowe. On the Sun.

Warning: Picture isn't pretty.

After being questioned by many as to why Sushil Kumar, the first to win Rs 5 crore on 'Kaun Banega Crorepati 5', hasn't received his prize money yet, the
show's host Amitabh Bachchan has said that Kumar's cheque is ready.
Bachchan said that the 27-year-old wants the cheque at the an upcoming award ceremony in the national capital.

 "People asking why Sushil Kumar not paid his KBC win.. cheque ready, but he wants it at CNN-IBN Award ceremony in Delhi on 16th. "Also as per terms and conditions of Sony, they have to pay within 60 days of on air broadcast... so still time for expiry," Bachchan tweeted.

Kapil Sibal, minister of communications and information technology, appeared on the CNN-IBN program "Devil's Advocate' with Karan Thapar over the weekend to discuss  the government's recent request  that Internet companies like Facebook and Google screen user content.

India Ink, which broke the story on Dec. 5 and stands by it, responds to a few points that were made. Read

Another on on the NYT blogs: The framers of the United States Constitution so highly valued free speech that they enshrined it in the document's very first amendment. India, the world's other mammoth democracy, has a first amendment too, but its intent and meaning are quite the opposite.

Read

From the New York Times' India blogs: A decade after a suicide attack on India's Parliament that killed nine, the grand sandstone building in New Delhi seems firmly under security agencies' control. It has been equipped with more and better-trained manpower carrying sophisticated arms, new detector gadgets, sniffer dogs and armored vehicles that patrol the Parliament campus.

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Here you go: First look inside bombshell Lindsay Lohan's nude Playboy shoot.

On the Daily Mail.

Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad announced today that the government plans to screen the nation's entire population in next five years for cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and strokes for early detection and treatment of the ailments.

He said during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha that a pilot project has been launched in 100 districts of 21 states for the same. "India will be the first country in the world to screen the entire population in next five years," he said.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee took on the BJP's Arun Jaitley saying that the Indian economy has the capacity, resilience to overcome crisis and bounce badk. Hitting out Jaitley for his comments on Sunday from Jantar Mantar, Mukherjee says there is is no policy paralysis in the government and it was particularly wrong to say there was no decision making ability. He added, "Let us not institutionalise instability."

From our Delhi correspondent:

In the Rajya Sabha today, Jairam Ramesh, the Union Minister for Rural Development, created history of sorts by giving the longest reply to a question by a Kerala Congress MP on the Prime Minister's Rural Development Programme.

Jairam categorically said the programme is for new roads and not for upgradation of rural roads. Congress MPs from Kerala were extremely agitated, but Jairam answered the question with all the details

UP CM Mayawati is addressing a press meet. She says the Congress has  no willingness to act on graft as can be seen in the Lokpal draft. She says the BSP (her party), unlike the Cong has taken action on reports of grafted by the Lokayukta and have set up steps to curb both corruption and crime in the state.

Stern action aganist party members who were found corrupt, says Mayawati. 

That was a short 10-minute press brief, all of which has been said before.

A Saudi woman was beheaded yesterday after being convicted of practising sorcery, which is banned in the kingdom, the interior ministry said.

Amina Nassar was executed for "practising witchcraft and sorcery," the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

Amnesty International said beheading took to 73 the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year.

Rape, murder, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's Islamic sharia law.

The Supreme Court today allowed export of unused stock of Endosulfan insecticide, while retaining the complete ban imposed by it in on its production,
sale and use in the country. 

While allowing the export, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia said the "dilution, packaging and export" of the agrochemical will be handled by public sector unit Hindustan Insecticide Ltd. 

On rediff.com: INSIDE STORY: How endosulfan poisoned Kasargod

The great jewellery collections of the world might belong to maharajas or heads of state -- but Elizabeth Taylor gave them a run for their money. Some of Taylor's most iconic pieces will hit the block this week at a four-day sale at Christie's in New York between Dec 13 and Dec 16.

The auction will feature 269 pieces of jewels estimated in excess of $30 million, in addition to items from her closet, such as a glittering Versace jacket adorned with the face of Queen Elizabeth I, and copious amounts of her memorabilia, including a dog-eared copy of National Velvet.

You may not be able to buy it, but you certainly can drool.

"Did an Islamic cleric really ban women from touching bananas and cucumbers?"

This past week, an email pinged around the world, claiming that a Muslim cleric "residing in Europe" issued a, well, interesting fatwa, or religious ruling, banning Muslim women from touching bananas or cucumbers: "He said that these fruits and vegetables 'resemble the male penis' and hence could arouse women or 'make them think of sex, according to a report in a supposed Egyptian website, BikyaMasr.

On the Daily Beast

Updates on the AMRI hospital fire in Kolkata that killed 91.

A Telegraph, Calcutta story reveals that the fire broke out at 2:15 am and not the official 3.30 pm.

From the Telegraph: Chaitanya Singh Mehta, a 74-year-old patient at the Dhakuria AMRI last week, says he "smelt fumes' in his room around 2.15am. Mehta's account to The Telegraph punches holes in what hospital sources have been saying so far -- that the fire started at 3.30am -- to explain why AMRI officials got in touch with police only at 4.10am. Two minutes before that '" but nearly two hours after the fire was first noticed -- the police had already called the fire brigade.

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The European Organization for Nuclear Research today, at 8 am (EST), is to reveal a tantalizing secret. The word on the street is that scientists will unveil the first hints of the Higgs boson, also called the "God particle" in popular culture. This unimaginably small particle has never been detected, but would explain several unsolved mysteries about the universe '" for instance, why building blocks of our world have mass.

More on the bbc.co.uk.

A huge collection of papers belonging to pioneering scientist Sir Isaac Newton -- the father of gravity -- has been posted online by Cambridge University. The archive includes Newton's college notebooks and some of his most important writings from the 1660s on mathematics and calculus, optics and gravity.

Read it on cnn.com

A quick read from MK Bhadrakumar's blog:

I wrote yesterday that the ramifications of Iran's 'scoop' - downing the US drone ('Beast of Kandahar') - are bound to spread. President Barack Obama has now broken silence, revealing, "We've asked for it back - we'll see how the Iranians respond.'

This is public diplomacy at its very best. The dozen words will be keenly analysed not only in Tehran but in many world capitals, especially Beijing and Moscow.

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The Supreme Court has directed states to ensure that adequate night shelters are provided to the homeless during the winter so that "not a single person died" from the cold.

The capital, Delhi, along with Indian-administered Kashmir and the states of Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are usually badly hit by the cold. More than 50 people died in the cold in northern India last year.

The cold snap also forced authorities to close down schools.

More on the bbc.co.uk

The Congress party has slammed the opposition parties for exhibiting political opportunism during the one day fast of anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare. 

Talking to mediapersons, Congress party's spokesperson Renuka Chaudhary said that the opposition parties had displayed a political opportunism of the lowest kind by attending Hazare's fast.Various opposition parties like the BJP, CPI, JD-U attended Hazare's fast and criticised the government over corruption and other issues. 

"The one day fast that you have all witnessed, the right political opportunism that has been witnessed by the entire nation is something that we will recall even as we go forward into retaining and re-establishing our democratic processes.

"It is unfortunate that political opportunism overrules practices of democracy, and targeting individuals making personal attacks on individuals are only a sorry state of affair. We can only pity on those who can believe that this is a way to establishing their national credentials," Chaudhary said.

In other news: Playboy Magazine has released the first shot of Lindsay Lohan from the inside spread after the cover of the highly anticipated issue was leaked on the internet earlier.   

The 25-year-old actress is seen channeling her inner bombshell as she reclines with her white blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders, her arm raised above her head.  

With her red glossy lips parted, Lohan is seen pouting and staring into the camera with her eyes partially hidden under her huge eyelashes.  

Fans of the magazine will no doubt feel short changed by the "nude shot' which reveals only a hint of her chest.

Gujarat cadre IAS officer Pradeep Sharma, who is in jail for alleged irregularity in land allotment to private firms, was granted bail by the Supreme Court today. The bail is however conditional -- a bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam said that it passed the order after Sharma, who is in jail for the last 16 months, gives an undertaking that he will be present in the trial court on each hearing and he would report to local police station once in a week.

Sharma has alleged that he was being hassled by Gujarat CM Narendra Modi's men.

Good morning. First up:

The rupee tumbled by 35 paise to an all-time low of Rs 53.29 per US dollar in early trade on the Interbank Foreign Exchange today on continued demand for
the American currency from banks and importers, coupled with news of negative growth in industrial output in October. Dollar gains against other currencies overseas amid euro zone debt concerns also put pressure on the Indian rupee. 

The domestic currency had tumbled by 81 paise to close at a record low of Rs 52.84/85 per dollar in the previous session on strong demand for the American currency and strengthening of the dollar against its rivals overseas. Meanwhile, the BSE benchmark Sensex fell by 60.98 points, or 0.38 per cent, to 15,809.37 in opening trade today.