1. No Metro trains after 8 pm on Diwali in Delhi
2. Shiney moves court over maid mobile ad
3. Delhi blast accused in jail till Nov 6
4. Gaddafi's corpse continues to attract impatient hordes
5. Digvijaya 'very happy with Amar bail'
6. It's Diwali in jail for Kanimozhi, court quashes bail plea
7. 2G case: Court defers hearing on plea against PC
8. It's Diwali in jail, no bail for Yeddyurappa
9. NGO trustees have asked travel agent to return money: Bedi
10. Digvijaya: Kejriwal's 'misuse' of funds serious
11. Cash-votes: Amar Singh gets bail on medical grounds
12. 'Mean' Jobs admired Facebook CEO Zuckerberg
13. Benazir Bhutto's mother Nusrat dies at 82

Heads up if you are in Delhi and planning to use the Metro. Trains will not run after 8 pm on Diwali and the last train will start at 8 pm on Wednesday from the all the six terminal stations -- Dilshad Garden, Rithala, Jahangir Puri, Huda City Centre, Noida City Centre, Dwarka Sector-21, Yamuna Bank, Vaishali,
Inderlok, Mundka, Central Secretariat and Badarpur stations.

Metro train services will run as usual for rest of the day on Diwali from 6 am onwards, a Metro spokesperson said. 

However, for the 'Bhai Duj' festival on Friday, special arrangements have been made to cater to the rush.

With each passing day, the media keeps dragging out yet more 'dirt' on Anna Hazare's core leadership team. With absolutely no sense of scale, they have amplified and blown up what was, in Kiran Bedi's case, merely an attempt at cross-subsidising her voluntary services:  simply put, Bedi accepted contributions from those who could afford to pay to have her come and talk and used the savings on those contributions (by travelling cattle class) to offer her services for free to those who couldn't defray her travel and other expenses.

Would it have helped if Bedi's NGO had been more transparent in its accounting practice vis--vis her contributors? Of course.

Read the opinion piece on Firstpost.com.

Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja, who is accused of raping his house maid, has taken legal action against a Micromax mobile phone advertisement, which takes a dig at the scandal.

The Bollywood star's publicist Dale Bhagwagar has said that the advertisement amounts to willful character assassination. Watch

A Delhi court today sent Aamir Abbas Dev and Wasim Akram Malik, accused in the September 7 Delhi High Court blast, to judicial remand for 14 days after
the NIA submitted that it does not require their custody. Special NIA Judge H S Sharma sent Dev and Malik to Tihar Jail till November 8 after the probe agency said his custodial interrogation was over.

Malik was produced before the court by the National Investigating Agency after the expiry of his three-day custody while Dev was already in judicial custody. Malik remained in NIA custody for a total of 17 days.

Rediff.com's N Ganesh reports: To avoid the wrath of MNS chief Raj, TV channel Colors Viacom has tendered a written apology for allegedly insulting Maharashtrians on its reality show Bigg Boss.

On Friday, Amar Upadhyay, one of the male contestants was punished on the show, and told to serve other housemates. Housemates Shakti Kapoor and Siddharth Bhardwaj called him PK Lele, a name found in the Maharashtrian community. On Saturday, Thackeray, said he objected to Maharashtrians being caricatured.

Thackeray remarked that it was 'perverse presentation for publicity'. He said that he did not watch such shows and urged people not watch it either.

In world news, Tunisian authorities counted votestoday in carefully watched elections, amid early signs showing a once-banned Islamist party leading in many constituencies in the country that unleashed uprisings across the Arab world.    

Tunisia was known for decades for its repressive leadership but also for its progressive legislation on women and families, which secular-leaning Tunisians fear the moderate Islamist party Ennahda would roll back if it takes a commanding number of seats in the new assembly being created by elections held yesterday.

Congress leader Digvijay Singh today expressed happiness at Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh being granted bail by the Delhi High Court in the cash-for-votes
case. 

"I am very happy he has got bail. I wish a Happy Diwali to him and his family. Now, Amar Singhji will celebrate Diwali with his entire familly," the AICC general secretary, who has been involved in bitter spats with Singh in the past.

The Delhi High Court granted bail to Amar Singh in the 2008 cash-for-vote case but restrained him from leaving the country without its permission.

Like every Indian, I'm just fed up with corruption & the inability of the system to combat it. Digvijayaji should stop tilting at windmills.  

And another tweet...

What nexus between BJP & Team Anna? I am an avowed supporter of the Janlokpal Bill - & yet have never met or spoken to Kejriwal, Bedi, Anna.

In other news, America's attempts to strengthen its ties with Afghan President Hamid Karzai received an unexpected hard blow, as the Afghan leader said his country would back Pakistan in a clash with the US.  

"If Pakistan is attacked and the people of Pakistan need Afghanistan's help, we will be there for Pakistan. We will never forget the hospitality of the Pakistani people,' Karzai told Geo News in an interview.  

According to some Afghan and Western officials in Kabul, the prospects of a US war with Pakistan are remote, and Karzai's comments are nothing but poorly executed effort to blunt his recent angry comments about Pakistan''s support for Afghan insurgent groups, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Great read on vastu shastra on the Guardian.co.uk. Read

CBI does not oppose bail to DMK MP Kanimozhi in the 2G spectrum case or for that matter, the bail of Kaliagnar TV MD Sharad Kumar and Karim Morani's plea.

The court has finished hearing Kanimozhi's bail plea.

The other court story today: A special CBI court today deferred its hearing on Janata Party's president Subramanian Swamy's plea to make Home Minister P Chidambaram a co-accused in the 2G spectrum case.

The bodies of 53 people, believed to be supporters of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, has been found in a hotel that was under the control of anti-Gadhafi fighters, Human Rights Watch said today, reports cnn.com.

The rights group said it found the bodies clustered together at Hotel Mahari in Sirte on Sunday. About 20 residents were putting the bodies in body bags to prepare them for burial when Human Rights Watch found them. Read

Quick takes from the bbc.co.uk:

• Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has won re-election in a landslide victory, on the back of strong economic growth in the country.
• National Transitional Council (NTC) leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil urged Libyans to put civil conflict behind them for the sake of the country.

Update our 11:14 am post on the death of Benazir Bhutto's mother Nusrat.  

The Dawn reports that the country shut down today to mourn the death of Nusrat Bhutto, former first lady and mother of assassinated prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who died in Dubai after a long illness. She was 82.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ordered a 10-day period of national mourning with Monday a public holiday, cancelling all his engagements. "The national flag will fly at half mast during these days,' his office said in a statement as government offices, shops, schools and businesses closed across the country.

President Zardari (Nusrat Bhutto's son-in-law), who reached Dubai on Sunday after cutting short a visit to London, will personally bring her body by a chartered plane today.

Update on our 11:44 am story on Kiran Bedi:

Team Anna member Kiran Bedi, who is under fire for overcharging organisers using inflated travel bills, today said excess amount collected on account of
her travel expenses will be returned to the hosts. 

"Trustees (of the India Vision Foundation) have instructed the travel agent to return the balance amounts forthwith. They have already passed a resolution directing me to travel strictly as per invite. This leaves no room for discretion," she said.

The India Vision Foundation is an NGO run by Bedi. She said travel agent Anil Bal, who is also a trustee of the Foundation, was handling the travel account and has been asked to return the money.

Bal's agency was handling the travel assignments of Bedi. The Trustees, including adman Prahlad Kakkar, Laveleen Thadani, Achal Paul, Pradeep Halwasiya, Amarjit Singh and Sunil Nanda, were of the view that she need not save money for the NGO in this way.

Senior BJP leader LK Advani, who is on a rath yatra, has reached Sambhalpur in Orissa today.  Advani took a dig at the Congress saying though there was always a question mark over who was the number one in the government,
now by creating a "pecking order" the government has now raised a question mark over who was the number two. 

On reports about a hierarchy set by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he said, "This pecking order has been declared and its importance is that all important decisions will be taken by the Prime Minister in relation to the cabinet." 

At the same time, he said this "does not mean that no permission is required from 10 Janpath," in relation to key decisions.  

After alleging a link between the RSS, BJP and Arvind Kejriwal, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has said that the allegation made by Swami Agnivesh against the Team Anna about funds being diverted to the latters's NGO is a serious matter.  

Swami Agnivesh had earlier questioned the use of funds donated by the public, claiming that the money deposited in the trust run by Kejriwal lacks credibility.   "Swami Agnivesh has also been a member of the Anna Team. Arvind Kejriwal is also a member of the Anna Team. Anna Hazare made the 'India Against Corruption', which wants to bring the Jan Lokpal Bill.

Money was collected for that purpose. Now Agnivesh has levied this serious charge that Kejriwal diverted the money that was collected for India Against Corruption to his own personal NGO, the members of which are not the ones in the Anna Team. This is a serious allegation," Singh said.

Just in: Former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, an accused in the cash-for-votes scam, has been granted bail. Amar Singh's lawyer argued that his medical condition required constant monitoring and had to live in hygenic conditions, which is not possible in Tihar jail. Amar Singh is hospitalised at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He has been granted bail on a surety of Rs 1 crore, and his passport has been withheld.

However, the court has granted conditional bail -- he will not be allowed to leave the country to visit his doctor in Singapore where the MP had undergone renal transplant.

He has been suffering from UTI, increase serum creatinine, vitamin B12 deficiency and increased TSH. His medical report by AIIMS had said that he had developed severe abdominal pain and was prone to infection as he had undergone renal transplant.  

Kanimozhi trial: Ealier in the day, Senior advocate Altaf Ahmed told Special CBI Judge O P Saini that as per the June 22 order of the apex court, both
Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV MD Sharad Kumar could approach the special court seeking bail after framing of charges. The counsel said as a result of this it is now a fit case for bail.

Kanimozhi had earlier also pleaded for bail but was refused by the trial court, Delhi High Court as well as the Supreme Court. The apex court, while rejecting her bail, had said that she could move afresh for the bail after charges are framed against her and other accused in the 2G scam.

Kiran Bedi on Twitter: Further to asking me to travel as per invite, Trustees have instructed travel agent to return the balance amounts forthwith.  

Kiran Bedi was accused on charging her hosts full fare on air tickets while availing discounts but the activist claimed there was 'no personal' gain. Allegations were levelled against Bedi, a key member of Team Anna, that she used her gallantry medal to get 75 per cent discount on Air India tickets and then submitted inflated invoices to claim full fare from the organiers who have invited her to the function. It was also alleged that she claimed business class fare even when she was travelling in economy class.

After the reams that have been published euologising the late Steve Jobs, CEO Apple Inc., his biographer comed up with an entirely different tale. Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs, who is described by his biographer as being "brittle and
very mean to people," had high regards for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and admired his Silicon valley counterpart for "not selling out."

In an interview with CBS for the show '60 minutes', Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson says he admired Zuckerberg's zest for "wanting to make a company."
"We talk about social networks in the plural, but I don't see anybody other than Facebook out there... Just Facebook, they're dominating this," Jobs told Isaacson.

If you've missed this piece of news, here you go...

Pakistan's former first lady Begum Nusrat Bhutto has died in Dubai after a long illness. She was 82. She was the widow of the former Pakistani Prime Minister and President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and the mother of Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated four years ago. Nusrat Bhutto was herself elected twice to the Pakistani parliament. Full report in the bbc.co.uk

In the other big story, life after Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, after the former dictator was killed on Thursday in Sirte by rebel forces.

Libya's new rulers declared the country freed from Muammar Gaddafi's 42 years of one-man rule, saying the "Pharaoh of the times" was in history's garbage bin and a future of democracy and reconciliation beckoned.

But as thousands in Benghazi on Sunday heard the authorities announce "liberation," Gaddafi's rotting body, unburied and on public display in Misrata, was casting a shadow over the nation he once dominated.

Read the reuters story.

The other big story we are following -- the Turkey quake.

Rescue teams are desperately searching for people trapped under rubble after a strong earthquake hit Turkey's eastern Van region on Sunday. More than 217 people died and 1,000 were injured in the 7.2 magnitude quake, many of them in the town of Ercis, where dozens of buildings fell. Tens of thousands have been sleeping outside in freezing conditions.  Read the story on bbc.co.uk

On Twitter...

R K Laxman turns 90 today. The uncommon man. Legend. Inspiration. For enriching us with his noble ideas and gentle wit. Happy birthday sir.

Bail hearing of 2G accused to resume at 2pm. Kanimozhi's counsel says there is no question of tampering with evidence now, since the probe in the case is over. The counsel says the court can impose conditions while granting bail. He further said that the custody of the 2G accused is not required in the case any more.

Kanimozhi's father, DKM supremo Karunanidhi is waiting with fingers crossed, we assume. The patriach of the DMK family met Kani a number of times since she was placed in judicial custody in Tihar jail.

Massive earthquake rattles Turkey, 1,000 feared killed (The Hindu)
A powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey on Sunday, killing at least 85 people and sparking widespread panic as it collapsed dozens of buildings into piles of twisted steel and chunks of concrete. Read

Special court to hear Kanimozhi's bail plea today in 2G case (Hindustan Times)
The special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court at Patiala House will on Monday hear the bail pleas of Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi and six others - Sharad Kumar, RK Chandolia, Rajiv Aggarwal, Asif Balwa, Shahid Balwa, Promoter and Karim Morani in the 2G case. Read

Court hearing of Chidambaram's role in 2G postponed to Nov 8 (DNA)
Subramanian Swamy's plea against Chidambaram for his alleged role in the 2G spectrum scandal will now be tried in court on November 8. Read

Basis to prosecute Modi for riots: SC amicus (Indian Express)
Ramachandran report says Sanjiv Bhatts claims on on Feb 27 meeting cant be dismissed. Read

Indian Army copter forced to land in Pakistan, released (The Hindu)

The Indian Army Aviation helicopter with it a crew of four returned to Kargil, Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday evening after it strayed and landed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the afternoon. Read