1. Anti-Modi police officer Sanjeev Bhatt arrested
2. Raja refuses to respond to CBI plea on new charge
3. 'BJP proud of many PM candidates, not just yuvraj'
4. BJP questions bias towards Chidambaram
5. In Kashmir unmarked graves will speak: Roy
6. Omar apologises to J-K rape victims for identity gaffe
7. Modi skips BJP national executive meet

Facebook users beware . The new timeline feature unveiled by the social networking site recently is all set to embarrass you if a warning from a technology blog is any indication.Techwag has warned Facebook users that adult sites could show up in their account timelines once the new feature goes live in the coming weeks.

The timeline feature means you will now have an ongoing and persistent record of your activities when on Facebook and so will others who can view your page.

This means is that if a porn site uses passive sharing options on Facebook, has "like' buttons on its page or allows people to sign into their site using your Facebook details then all of that will now be recorded on your timeline.

British Home Office rules asking academic staff at British universities to keep a tab on students from India and other non-EU countries have sparked off concern that lecturers have been turned into "spies and spooks".

New official figures show that universities and other sponsors of international students reported at least 27,121 non-EU students to the UK Border Agency in the 18 months leading up to August last year. 

As part of new rules to tighten the students visa system and prevent its abuse, academic staff are required to report to immigration authorities if non-EU students are absent from classes or if their activities arouse suspicion.

On Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, Cyril Almeida on the standoff with the US.

If the US is the 800-pound gorilla that stamps on itself, Pakistan is like a python which thinks it's crushing its prey, but is really asphyxiating itself.

For a couple of days after Mullen's Haqqanis-are-a-veritable-arm-of-the-ISI allegation last week, it looked like the Americans had finally achieved the improbable: synchronising their tough talk against Pakistan.

Read

In the Financial Times, Indian lender Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL$FS) is set to become the first Indian group to raise renminbi-denominated debt in Hong Kong, planning a three-year $100m dim sum bond early next month, people close to the matter said.

The move comes on the heels of the Indian government's decision to allow domestic companies to raise debt in the Chinese currency, and Hong Kong is attractive as companies can raise funds there at about 70 per cent of the cost at home.

In the National Interest, a profile of the 'new Mao'.

Excerpts: It may be time to concede that China's leader-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, is not the moderate that many have assumed. Indeed, evidence from his past suggests that Xi is going to steer China in a more aggressive direction, both domestically and internationally. Read

Congress spokesperson Renuka Chowdhury responding to Sanjeev Bhatt's arrest says: "This is Modi's real sadbhavana."  

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi went on a 72-hour fast on September 17 for "peace, unity and harmony" at the Gujarat University convention centre in Ahmedabad.

Just in: Suspended police officer Sanjeev Bhatt has been detained in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Bhatt today told the Gujarat High Court that Chief Minister Narendra Modi and former Minister of State for Home Amit Shah had tried to pressurise him to destroy crucial evidence in the Haren Pandya murder case. Bhatt had also charged Modi with abetting the 2002 riots.

He was arrested on the basis of an affidavit filed by a subordinate officer KD Pant, who says Bhatt forced him to file the affidavit against Modi.

The allegations were made by Bhatt in an additional affidavit filed by him on Septmeber 27, before Justice R H Shukla, who was hearing an alleged police atrocity case against the IPS officer in Jamnagar district.

Bhatt has sought relief in the case. In the affidavit, Bhatt claimed while he was posted as Superintendent of Sabarmati Central Prison in November 2003, he had come across important documentary evidence in connection with the murder of BJP leader and former minister Haren Pandya.

The government today approved deployment of six new MI-17 variant helicopters and also enhanced the strength of CRPF troops to 76,000 for conducting anti-Naxal operations in Maoist hotbeds of the country. 

Home Minister P Chidambaram today parried questions on the truce between him and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on the controversial 2G note and
whether he had offered to quit during the crisis.

At his monthly press conference on the Home Ministry's working, a reporter asked him whether yesterday's truce was a defeat for Mukherjee and a win for you. "I don't recall anything of that in the Ministry of Home Affairs," Chidambaram said. "Frankly, I have a very short memory," he told a reporter
when asked whether he had offered to resign. 

"How many times have you offered to resign?,"  a reporter persisted. "Along with short memory, I am also poor in counting," the Home Minister shot back. "At least once?," the reporter tried yet again. "Actually, I am learning numeracy," Chidamabarm said.

On Firstpost.com: India was the biggest buyer of conventional arms among developing nations in 2010 and had global defence giants lining up to capture $5.8 billion in new deals, said a report for the US Congress.

Worldwide arms sales in 2010 totalled $40.4 billion, a drop of 38 percent from the $65.2 billion in arms deals signed in 2009 and the lowest total since 2003, the Congressional study found. Read

Earlier in the day, former Telecom Minister A Raja told a Delhi court that he would not respond to CBI's fresh plea to invoke additional charge of criminal breach of trust against all the accused till the agency stated that its probe in the 2G spectrum allocation scam was over.

Special CBI Judge O P Saini, who was to receive replies of 17 accused including Raja on the plea of CBI, was taken aback when senior advocate Sushil Kumar, appearing for the DMK leader, said he would not participate in hearings till CBI clarified its position on the status of probe.

"I am taking a very clear stand that till the time CBI files an affidavit or says it on oath here that investigation is complete or going on, I am not going to participate in the proceedings of this case," Kumar said.

Born in New Mexico, al-Awlaki preached at a mosque in Virginia before leaving the United States for the Middle East.

US officials say al-Awlaki helped recruit Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a transatlantic flight as it landed in Detroit on December 25, 2009.

The militant cleric is also said to have exchanged emails with accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hassan who killed a dozen fellow soldiers and a civilian in a rampage at the Texas base.

Early this year, a Yemeni court sentenced al-Awlaki in absentia to 10 years in prison for charges of inciting to kill foreigners.

Attacking the UPA government, BJP today alleged that it is suffering from a crisis of credibility and wondered why "different yardsticks" were being
applied for former Telecom Minister A Raja and Home Minister P
Chidambaram in the 2G case.
Addressing the BJP National Executive meeting, party president Gadkari said, "If the Prime Minister is so indifferent to the problems and crisis faced by the government, then why is he in office? He always has a hallmark reply that he did not know anything."

Bigg Boss 5 host Salman Khan has expressed his desire to see Colombian singer-dancer Shakira, pop icon Lady Gaga and Bollywood filmmaker David Dhawan locked in the house for this season of the hit reality show.

Though an official announcement on the 14 house inmates is yet to be made, the names that are making the rounds include Shakira, former boxing champion Mike Tyson, Mexican actress Barbara Mori, former South African cricketer Jonty Rodes, former Indian Cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu, comedian Jaspal Bhatti, Nishita Biswas, wife of Charles Sobhraj, among others. 

The Supreme Court has allowed the export of unused endosulfan, but the ban on its manufacturing will continue. The SC in May ordered a countrywide ban on the manufacture, sale and use of the cheap and popular pesticide endosulfan citing its toxic effects on humans and the environment.

Also read on rediff.com: The inside story of how endosulfan poisoned Kasargod.

So, Narendra Modi is not attending the BJP conclave.

BJP leaders today downplayed the absence of the Gujarat Chief Minister at the party's national executive committee meeting, saying there is no infighting in the party. "Infighting is there in the Congress and not in our party," senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi said here when asked about Modi's absence from the meeting. 

Modi's absence from the crucial meeting comes in the backdrop of talks of differences between him and senior party leader L K Advani. Modi had reportedly even told Advani that the yatra is "unnecessary and irrelevant".

The BJP also said it had many prime ministerial candidates, instead of just one yuvraj (implying of course, Rahul Gandhi).

At the BJP conclave, spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad says that the party will have no alliance with the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party  in the UP Assembly polls next year. The party says if it isn't chosen by the people, it would prefer to sit in the Opposition.

Arundhati Roy in the Guardian.co.uk on the Kashmir's disappearing people and its unmarked graves...

An excerpt from the Guardian.co.uk:

Kashmir is in the process of being isolated, cut off from the outside world by two concentric rings of border patrols -- in Delhi as well as Srinagar -- as though it's already a free country with its own visa regime.

Within its borders of course, it's open season for the government and the army. The art of controlling Kashmiri journalists and ordinary people with a deadly combination of bribes, threats, blackmail and a whole spectrum of unutterable cruelty has evolved into a twisted art form. While the government goes about trying to silence the living, the dead have begun to speak up.

Read

Quick takes...

The government has hiked CNG prices by a steep Rs 2 per kg to Rs 32 per kg in Delhi.

Former telecom minister A Raja's plea is in the court. The court has fixed October 7 as the date for hearing section 409, which if imposed, means that Raja could face a life term.

A New Mines Bill, which provides for sharing of profit and royalty with project-affected people, has been approved by the Cabinet, says minister for mines Dinsha Patel. The PAP will now get 26 per cent share in profits.

Vinod K Jose unravels the mystique of Manmohan Singh in the Caravan magazine. Read

And here's Pakistan's response to the America's continued warning to Pakistan on the Haqqani-ISI link.

A marathon meeting of Pakistan's top political leaders has rejected as "baseless" the US assertion that the ISI is using the Haqqani network to wage a proxy war
in Afghanistan and backed the military in defeating "any threat to national security". 

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani convened the meeting of political and religious parties yesterday against the backdrop of growing tensions with the US and threats of unilateral American military action against militants holed up in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

Responding to a query raised by the opposition in the J-K Assembly about the details and the rehab of the rape victims after the names of scores of victims from across the state were made public, Abdullah said: As Chief Minister and as a Home Minister since the department is mine, I would like to tender an apology to all those rape victims who names were mentioned. It should not have happened. I will ensure that it is never repeated again. But I have a deep sense of shame and a deep sense of apology that these names were shared.

Yet again, the Pentagon has said, that the Pakistani government should challenge the terrorist safe havens inside the country, even as Islamabad said that it can't be asked to "do more" in the war against terror. 

"We believe that the government of Pakistan should challenge that (terror) sanctuary," Pentagon spokesperson George Little said at an off-camera news conference when asked about the remarks made by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Islamabad.