CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury commenting on Delhi University's 100 per cent cut off quips, "Even Shakespeare won't get in now."

Don't forget to catch the darkest lunar eclipse in a 100 years tonight, even if it means staying up late. See our 14:28 pm post.

As for what happened during the day, here it is...

1. Tax raids on CWG overlays firms
2. PM not on agenda at Lokpal meet today
3. Four Shakeel men detained in J Dey murder
4. Liz, Arun divorce today
5. Rajini discharged from Singapore hospital
6. Human rights win for UK rapists, paedophiles
7. Films written for SRK, why not me: Om Puri
8. British MPs back aid to 'cash rich' India
9. Maha CM asks Dey's family to keep the faith
10. Sibal reaches out to students on 100% cut off
11. Gaddafi and family to attend London Olympics
12. Radia meets CBI director, submits documents
13. Maya blames Opposition for teen murder
14. Pathology report says Ganga seer poisoned
15. Pak court allows Sarabjit's sister to meet him

The Supreme Court today directed self-proclaimed godman Chandraswami to deposit Rs 25 lakh within a week as the first tranche of penalty in several FEMA violation cases registered by the Enforcement Directorate.    

A vacation bench of justices B S Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar directed Chandraswami and his associate Vikram Singh to deposit the money in the four matters in which ED has slapped a penalty.    

The ED has imposed a total penalty of Rs 9 crores (approx) on Chandraswami in 13 cases of FERA violations for acquiring foreign exchange in contravention of the Act.     

During the proceedings, the bench said he Chandswami has to pay more than eight crore and asked from his counselwhether he would pay the penalty or not.

Don't know whether anyone else does, but Neil Nitin Mukesh certainly loves himself.

His tweet: Some alone time in my makeup van! 

And the picture he tweeted

News from the almost-forgotten CWG scam.

The Income Tax department today conducted searches at 17 premises of contractors who conducted overlays works worth Rs 140 crore for the Commonwealth Games held here last year.

According to I-T sources, the searches and survey operations were carried out on the premises of two contractors in Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon.

They, however, declined to divulge names of the firms as the searches were on.The contractors has done a host of Streetscaping work at the Games venues and were on the radar of the I-T department for some time.

On twitter: Nitin Gadkari says "Congress Munni se bhi zyada badnaam hai" ... '

...and

'Sonia fighting corruption is like Pak fighting terror'   

More trouble seems to be brewing for Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi after it emerged that he tried to cover up his relationship with a teenage nightclub dancer, a charge which prosecutors say was similar to a"military attack".

Berlusconi, who has been embroiled in several sex scandals, was now accused of abusing his office by telephoning a Milan police station and putting officers under pressure to release Karima El Mahroug, known by her stage name as Ruby the Heart Stealer, from arrest on a charge of theft.

Meanwhile, in Greece, police have fired teargas at protesters outside parliament as MPs prepare to debate new austerity measures required for the EU and IMF bail-out package.

Demonstrators around Syntagma Square in Athens responded by throwing yoghurt and stones. Thousands are taking part in a general strike, the third in Greece this year, reports bbc.co.uk.

Indian-origin artist Anish Kapoor has called off a planned exhibition in China over the ongoing detention of outspoken artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei.  

The British Council had asked Kapoor to plan a show at Beijing's National Museum of China as part of next year's "UK Now' festival.  

But the artist's spokesman confirmed that he was not going to proceed in view of the detention of Weiwei.

Weiwei was detained in Beijing on April 3 as he tried to board a flight to Hong Kong, and remains under house arrest. He is under investigation for "economic crimes".

If you remember, Anish Kapoor had held shows in India, one in Delhi and one in Mumbai spanning December 2010 to January this year.

External Affairs minister SM Krishna is in  External Affairs Minister SM Krishna is in place called Astana in Kazakhistan for the 11th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Heads of States Summit.

While addressing the meet today, Krishna said India is doing its best for the reconstruction of Afghanistan to improve the social and economic lives of the friendly people, who have been suffering from conflict for the last almost three decades.  

"We are helping our Afghan friends even at the cost of the lives of our people. India stands committed to the prosperity of the Afghan people and our Prime Minister was in Afghanistan recently to reaffirm India's unwavering commitment to this cause."

The inclusion or exclusion of the PM is not on the agenda at today's Lokpal meeting, which begins any time now. The meeting will discuss the appointment of the Lokpal.  

Any time now, social activist Anna Hazare, (who turned 74 today) will meet the government on the Lokpal Bill.

While we wait, Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh advised Hazare, to refrain from going on frequent fasts due to his old age even as he sharpened his attack on Baba Ramdev.

"If at all a fast has to be undertaken, it should be done by younger people like Arvind Kejriwal who are part of the civil society," Singh said today.

Furthering his attack on Ramdev the senior Congress leader said he would ask yoga experts to find out if the lessons taught by Baba were correct or not.

"As per whatever I know of yoga, it was not something which can be taught in a camp attended by thousands of people but it has to be done on a one-to-one basis between the teacher and the student," the party General Secretary said.

However, it must be remembered that it is yet to be confirmed whether the four men were the murderers or were involved in hatching the conspiracy. Details awaited.

Police commissioner Arup Patnaik, who is personally taking interest in the case, is yet to comment on the detentions. The Mumbai police are under tremendous pressure after journalists demanded a CBI probe in the case, which has so far been stalled by the CM.

News flash: Two men belonging to the Chhota Shakeel gang have been detained in the murder of journalist J Dey. Dey was shot dead at Powai, a suburb of Mumbai, on Saturday afternoon. So far, there have been no leads in the case, even as journalists have demanded a CBI probe in the case.

All the men were connected with sandalwood, oil and diesel smuggling.

Scroll down to our 12:43 and 11:29 posts for a background.

Elizabeth Hurley is set to be granted a quickie divorce from her Indian textile millionaire husband of four years Arun Nayar today.

The 'Austin Powers' star announced she was splitting from Arun last December after she was snapped kissing Aussie cricketer Shane Warne at a London hotel.

All that you wanted to know on Delhi university's cut off of 100 per cent.

Sri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi, has fixed 100 per cent cut-off marks for admission to the undergraduate commerce course. Justifying it, the college said it has been a practice for the last 20 years and there was nothing wrong with it.

Reacting to it, HRD minister Kapil Sibal said, "I was sad to hear it. I want to reach out to parents and students and tell them don't worry...We will take care of this irrationality. We are on your side."

Sibal added, "I am informed by the (Delhi University) Vice Chancellor that there is only one student in the entire list who has scored 100 per cent in science. He may never go to commerce. The idea is to exclude everybody in the science stream and not to allow them an opportunity. This is completely irrational," he said.

Also read: Student scores 85% but hangs herself

Thousands of sex offenders, including rapists and paedophiles, will be able to apply to be removed from the sex crimes register under human rights laws, the UK Government announced. Read the report in the telegraph.co.uk.

This day, 10  years ago, a film was released that despite all odds, went on to become one of Bollywood's greatest hits.

Rediff.com salutes Lagaan on its 10th birthday.

Read

Everytime there's news about Pakistan, it's always about terror, death or destruction. And so follows...

Unidentified armed men set two NATO oil tankers on fire in Bolan area of Pakistan's Balochistan province today though there were no casualties. 

The attackers, who were riding motorcycles, fired at the two tankers carrying fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan and then set them on fire.

On tonight: The darkest lunar eclipse in almost 100 years, as the centres of the sun, the earth and the moon will nearly be on one straight line,

The total lunar eclipse will begin at 00:52:30 IST and end at 02:32:42 IST. While the partial eclipse will begin at 23:52:56 IST and end at 03:32:15 IST. The time of the maximum eclipse is one hour, forty-two minutes, and twenty-four seconds.

The darkest lunar eclipse was last seen on August 6, 1971 and the next one will be seen on June 6, 2058.

So...

The Congress has demanded a CBI probe in the death of Swami Nigamanand, dismissing the CB-CID inquiry into ordered by the BJP-run Uttarakhand government, .

The Congress accused the BJP government of making Hema Malini the brand ambassador of Ganga Cleaning Campaign and said it did not take any action on the demand of a Sadhu, who sacrificed his life after fighting 114 days for the same cause.

Meanwhile, in Mumbai, the BJP wants a CBI probe into the murder of journalist J Dey. CBI has its hands full attending to the 2G case, the Aarushi Talwar case, the Bhatta Parsaul 'mass murder', the Sohrabuddin case... 

Update on the murder of a teen at a police station in UP.

The Allahabad High Court today has directed the UP government to submit a status report on the CB-CID or any other agency probe into the murder of the
14-year-old girl in a police station in Lakhimpur district. 

The petitioner, while seeking a CBI probe into the incident, had also sought a direction for paying compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the victim's family and deducting the compensation amount from the policemen concerned, apart from their dismissal. 

The report is likely to be received in five days. 

The girl was found hanging from a tree inside the premises of Nighasan Police Station in Lakhimpur district on Friday. The victim's mother in her complaint had alleged that the girl was raped and murdered after which 11 policemen were suspended. 

A second post mortem conducted by a panel of expert from Lucknow confirmed that the girl was strangulated, but ruled out rape.

Stating the obvious, of course, but Gaddafi and his family will attend the 2012 London Olympics unless Nato bombs get him first.

Britons are incensed that the Libyan regime has successfully requested close to 1,000 tickets to events at the London Olympics. The country's attendance at the Games is being co-ordinated by the Gaddafi family, reports telegraph.co.uk.

The Libyan Olympic Committee is headed by Muammar Gaddafi (obviously) and the government now fears a major diplomatic embarrassment over the attendance of regime figures.

The decision to grant Libya the valuable tickets will infuriate the million Britons who have missed out on attending over-subscribed events.

Rediff.com's Vikash Nanjappa writes on the 'death' of Ilyas Kashmiri.

Two weeks ago, it had been widely reported that Ilyas Kashmiri had been killed in a drone attack. But barring the Harkat-ul-Jihadi, no other agency including the US were able to confirm the news. And that's the way it has remained.

Indian agencies when contacted say that there are three aspects to the news relating to Ilyas Kashmiri.

• Following the David Headley revealations at theChicago court, the heat was on Kashmiri.
• Then, the US made it clear that after the death of Osama Bin Laden, the man most wanted on their list was Kashmiri. The US had also gone to the extent of telling Pakistan to act against Kashmiri.
• Once this directive was given to Pakistan, the ISI found itself in an extremely difficult situation since it could not afford the death of another high profile terrorist after Laden. The death of Kashmiri at the hands of US forces would have meant retaliation from terrorists.
• So, according to Indian agencies the death of Kashmiri appears to be a rumour either floated by the ISI or Kashmiri himself.

The poster boy of reality films doesn't like being bitten by reality.

Om Puri, who has acted in over 200 films till date rues the fact that roles are "written" especially for stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and not for an actor like him. 

The 60-year-old actor, who has two National awards to his credit, said that he too wants to play lead roles like the superstars. "There are hardly any roles written for a veteran actor like me. But roles are written especially for Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan and I have remained a character actor. I should get to play the lead in films," Puri said.

Puri, who has starred in critically acclaimed films like 'Aakrosh', 'Ardh Satya' and 'Mirch Masala', also said that the Hindi film industry lacks variety in filmmaking and makes the same song-and-dance movies, thus actors like him
have limited scope. 

British MPs have backed the controversial issue of giving aid to India till 2015 to ensure that it meets the millennium development goals, despite the fact that its economic growth is surging over the period of time.  

In a report published by the House of Commons international development committee on Tuesday, a cross-party group of MPs have said that despite India's huge economic growth over the last 25 years, average per capita income is one-twentieth of that in Britain, and over 400 million people still live in poverty, The Guardian reports.  

If you own a Che Guevara T-shirt, here's what you need to know on the man who's iconic for revolution.  

A new Guevara diary called the Diary of a Combatant has been discovered, which covers the revolutionary's arrival in Cuba in 1956 with Fidel and Ral Castro through to late 1958, reports the Guardian. Read

Incidentally, 'Che' means Boy, in Argentine; Guevara's name was Ernesto. If you haven't, watch the film, The Motorcycle Diaries, which catalogues Guevara's journey through South America, which led him to the path of revolution.

Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan has asked the family of slain journalist J Dey to have faith in the police.

Meanwhile, the BJP's Nitin Gadkari has jumped in demanding a CBI probe in the case, which is what journalists had asked of the CM.

Pathetic attempt at endorsement.

Just in: Corporate lobbyist Niira Radia has just met the CBI director in the 2G case. She says she had sought time to meet him to submit documents in the case.

Interesting, that Radia will always go with a suffix now... Tapes.

Also read: Radia's earlier meetings with the CBI and what she said

Mid Day cartoonist Satish Acharya on his colleague and journalist J Dey's murder.

See

Our favourite Ramesh Srivats on Twitter

Q: What's common to a student with 99% marks and Thakur from Sholay?

A: They are both victims of a cruel cut-off.

Iran has prohibited men from wearing necklaces in the latest crackdown by the Islamic regime on "un-Islamic' clothing and haircuts.  

Under the country's 'moral security plan' men are warned against glamorous hairstyles and wearing a necklace, while women are not allowed to wear loose-fitting headscarves, tight overcoats and shortened trousers that expose skin.  

Thousands of special forces have been deployed in Tehran''s streets, participating in the regime''s plan, which came shortly after the Iranian parliament proposed a bill to criminalize dog ownership, on the grounds that it "poses a cultural problem, a blind imitation of the vulgar culture of the west'.

If you can, lay your paws on Marjane Satrapi's book, Persepolis, which is her story of growing up in Iran from the Shah's regime to the Islamic revolution. 

From the Daily Mail, a story of brutality and horror.

A gang of Asian men went on trial yesterday accused of a sickening catalogue of child prostitution offences against vulnerable teenage girls as young as 13. The nine of whom six are married and one is a grandfather, face 55 charges, including inciting child prostitution, grooming and rape between 2007 and 2009.

Read

Pakistan's top spy agency ISI has arrested five CIA informants, including a Army major, who supplied information to the CIA ahead of the US operation that killed Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.

One of the detainees was reported to be a Pakistani Army major whom officials said copied license plates of cars visiting the al-Qaeda leader's compound in Abbottabat, Islamabad, The New York Times, citing officials, reported.

 The fate of the CIA informants who were arrested was unclear, but American officials told the newspaper that CIA Director Leon Panetta raised the issue when he visited Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and
intelligence officers.

Minutes after UP CM Mayawati's press conference, the government suspended Lakhimpur SP D K Rai. Rai had said, "The postmortem report mentioned asphyxia, as a result of hanging, the cause of death which rules out the allegation of murder."

Just desserts.

On the other big story, media across India has been following -- the murder of Mid Day journalist Jyotirmoy Dey.

Today, Journalist Associations in Mumbai have gone on a relay hunger strike to press for a CBI probe into the murder of Dey.

On Monday, mediapersons had taken out a protest march to demand the immediate arrest of the killers.The Maharashtra government had assured scribes that it would accept their demand to bring in a law to protect journalists but refused to hand over the probe to CBI, saying Mumbai Police should be given a fair chance to probe the case. 

Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had also refused to consider the demand for the resignation of Home Minister R R Patil and suspension of Mumbai police chief Arup Patnaik. 

Also read: Is the police involved in the murder?

Right now, UP CM Mayawati is addressing a press conference on the murder and alleged rape of a teen at a police station in Lakhimpur.

Bizarre CM blames the opposition for the murder saying the it's responsible for playing dirty politics and should help getting the accused arrested. She says the crime graph in UP has in fact gone down.  

The 14-year-old girl, who was found hanging inside the premises of a police station in Lakhimpur in UP, was murdered according to a postmortem report, which mentioned asphyxia, as a result of hanging, the cause of death.

The pathology report of Swami Nigamananda, who died on Monday after a 114-day fast in the Uttarakhand, indicates that he may have been poisoned by pesticides.

His family, in any case, suspect foul play behind his death. The seer slipped into coma while he was agitating for saving the Ganga River and checking illegal mining on its banks.

"His treatment was not only neglected by the state government, but we have information that some vested interest in the hospital where he was admitted mixed poison in the water he was drinking. Following this, he slipped into coma. He never regained consciousness," Rekha Jha, Nigamananda's aunt who is a schoolteacher in Bihar told rediff.com in a telephonic conversation on Wednesday morning.

Read more

First up: A Pakistani court today gave permission to the sister of Indian national Sarabjit Singh, sentenced to death for alleged involvement in bomb blasts in Punjab province, to meet him at Kot Lakhpat Jail tomorrow. 

Chief Justice Ijaz Chaudhry heard the petition this morning and permitted Kaur to meet Sarabjit in the prison at 11 am tomorrow, Sheikh said. Kaur arrived in Lahore on June 6 to meet Sarabjit and appeal to the Pakistan government for his release. 

Kaur and other members of Sarabjit's family had last visited Pakistan in 2008 to meet him. Sarabjit has been on death row since he was convicted for alleged involvement in four bomb blasts in 1990 that killed 14 people. His family insists that he was wrongly convicted for the bombings.

Good morning. The Lokpal Committee meets today amid much name-calling and bitterness in the last few days. Stay with us for all the news today.

Jayalalithaa demands Chidambarams resignation (The Hindu)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Tuesday sought the resignation of Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, alleging that he got himself elected to Parliament through "fraudulent'' means. Read

With CAG storm brewing for RIL, Jaipal meets Manmohan (The Hindu)

 The CAG has come down heavily on the working of the Petroleum Ministry as well as the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons and their "dubious role'' in giving "undue benefit" to RIL. Read

Baba Ramdev's health graph dip puts shadow on his brand of yoga (The Times of India)

The entire fast episode has left several yoga teachers wondering if Ramdev's rapid deterioration of health during the fast was a bad advertisement for the yoga guru as well as the traditional Indian wellness discipline. Read

Crucial lokpal meet today; will there be consensus? (Hindustan Times)

The 10 member joint drafting committee of the lokpal bill will hold its seventh meeting today in the capital to resolve contentious issues, including bringing the Prime Minister and the higher judiciary under the ambit of the new authority. Read

Multiple groups could be behind journalist J Dey's murder: police (Hindustan Times)

The police probe into the murder of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey is throwing up the possibility of the killing being a combined effort, indicating that more than one vested interest could be involved. Read

Singur Bill passed amid Opposition walkout (The Hindu)

The Bill seeks to empower the West Bengal government to return land to farmers of Singur. The Tatas later issued a statement saying that they were studying the Bill and would take appropriate steps. Read

Uttarakhand govt responsible for Swami Nigamanand's death: Jairam Ramesh (DNA)

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh today held Uttarakhand government responsible for the death of Swami Nigamanand, who died because of fasting, and warned the mining mafia, against which the seer ofHaridwar-based Matri Sadan Ashram was fighting, of action. Read