Just in: The CBI today sought legal advice from Attorney General Goolam E Vahanvati on the Army Chief's letter about the Rs 14 crore bribe offer made to him for allegedly clearing the purchase of sub-standard all-terrain vehicles for the forces. The CBI says it will be cautious as senior officers are involved.

Sagarika Ghose @sagarikaghose  Mausam hai aashiqana! #Delhi...

Here's why: An overcast sky enveloped New Delhi and NCR region on Tuesday evening followed by light showers. The visibility is quite low with traffic congestion being reported from several parts of the national capital. Commuters on the roads of the national capital switched on the headlights of their vehicles following the decline in visibility.

Many people preferred to stay back in their offices talking note of the weather. There also has been a decline in temperature following the light showers.

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram today said his ministry has sought amendments in the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) which were pending before the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS). 

"Ministry of Home Affairs has proposed three amendments in AFSPA. They are under consideration of CCS," he said. However, he did not elaborate on the nature of the amendments that have been proposed. 

Chidambaram was on a day-long visit to Jammu and Kashmir to review the security situation in the state. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is pressing strongly for revocation of AFSPA and reducing foot-prints of the security forces in the state in a phased manner.

Living on 29 rupees (a little more than 50 U.S. cents) a day may not be "such stuff as dreams are made on,' in William Shakespeare's immortal turn of phrase from "The Tempest.' But according to India's Planning Commission, which is charged with measuring such things, anyone spending more than that meager amount is considered to be above the poverty line.

Read the India blogs on the NYT

The condition of three-month old Afreen,allegedly battered by her father for being born a girl, continues to be critical and still on life support,hospital
sources said. The baby is on ventilator support and life support medication and had two convulsions today, Dr Premalatha said. 

Dr Gangadhar Belawadi, Medical Superintendent of Vani Vilas Hospital, where the child has been admitted, said there has been no bleeding from the rectum today unlike yesterday for which she was given blood transfusion. "We are monitoring her condition round the clock to ensure convulsions do not recur."

He said it was very difficult to give a clear picture of the baby's condition till she is taken off the ventilator and life support medication. The child has severe head injury and deep bite marks on her thighs and buttocks.

Omar Farooq, her father has confessed to having tried to kill his daughter as he did not want a girl baby and also to having tried to murder her on other occasions, police said.

Zimbabwean officials on Tuesday dismissed reports that President Robert Mugabe was seriously ill in Singapore, saying he was well and on holiday there with his family, and was expected to return home this week.

Read the reuters report.

Has the UPA government unwittingly stumbled upon the right solution to its over-ambitious and expensive social security schemes?

Read the report on Firstpost.com

Deprived of hosting international matches since a deadly attack on the Sri Lankan team bus three years ago, Pakistan hopes a high-profile new Twenty20 league can lure back overseas players.

No international team has played in Pakistan since the March 2009 attack in Lahore, which left eight people dead and several visiting players wounded, and the national team has had to play its "home" matches abroad, mostly in the United Arab Emirates.The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is still waiting for Bangladesh's response to an invitation to play a limited-overs series later this month.

Loop Telecom, whose 2G licences were among the 122 telecom licences cancelled by the Supreme Court, today said it is shutting down business in the country, except in the Mumbai circle where its sister concern Loop Mobile offers services.

"We have no other option. The company has already advertised in newspapers for shifting our customers on other network through MNP (Mobile Number Portability)," a Loop Telecom spokesperson said. The decision would impact about 6,000 subscribers in 13 circles but not in Mumbai, where the service is run by Loop Mobile with over three million subscribers.

Small time Bollywood actor Anuj Tikku was detained today on suspicion of killing his father Arunkumar Tikku, police said.

Tikku was found murdered on Saturday. "Anuj and his friend have been detained since the morning and are being interrogated regarding the murder of Anuj's father.

Anuj was not traceable since his father's murder on Saturday," Senior Police Inspector Dilip Rupawate said. Arunkumar Tikku, 62, who is based in Ghaziabad, had come to Mumbai a few days back on personal business involving his son Anuj, who also runs a firm that deals with events, TV commercials and content for radio.

According to police, Anuj is mentally disturbed and was receiving treatment at a hospital in Jaipur for the past four-five years and his father disapproved of him staying alone here. Anuj had rented his apartment in suburban Andheri.

Ansar Burney @AnsarBurney  reaching India tomorrow (Wednesday).

That's the Pakistani human rights activist, instrumental in securing the release of 22 crew members of Egyptian merchant vessel MV Suez from Somali pirates in July last year.

Sushma Swaraj @SushmaSwarajBJP  'No evidence against Narendra Modi' says SIT appointed by Supreme Court. A big relief for us. Ten years of vilification campaign must stop.

This is precisely what Ravi Shankar Prasad said immediately after the SIT report gave a clean chit to Modi.

The war on terror may be over, but it's left behind a terrible human rights legacy -- and Barack Obama has done very little about it.

Read

Low-cost carrier SpiceJet has raised about Rs 100 crore by allotting 4.29 crore shares to promoter Kalanithi Maran at a price of Rs 23.18 per share. "Pursuant to the shareholders' approval, on April 10, 2012, the company has allotted 42,900,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each at a price of Rs 23.18 per share to Kalanithi Maran, promoter of the company on preferential basis," SpiceJet said
in a filing with the BSE.

The overall holding of promoters in the airline has risen to 48.6 per cent after the allotment of 4.29 crore shares, or 5 per cent equity. Maran, the media baron-turned airline owner, took over as the chairman of SpiceJet in November 2010 after buying out stake held by the US-based private equity investor Wilbur Ross.

A hundred years after his creator's death, Dracula continues to terrify and inspire. Arifa Akbar looks at our fascination with fiction's first vampire.

Read the report on the Independent.

Why aren't schools doing more to educate children about forced marriage?

Also on the Guardian

In other news: Radical cleric, who wears a claw for the hand he lost, can be sent to US to face terrorism charges, along with four other men held in Britain.

Read the Guardian report.  

To create machines that can always tell when someone is lying, we need to know much more about what goes on in our brains.

Interesting read on the BBC.

Breaking news on BBC says that a second psychiatric evaluation of mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has found him sane enough to face trial and a jail term, Norwegian media report.

The findings contradict a previous evaluation that found him legally insane. Breivik is due to stand trial on 16 April over a shooting spree last July, in which he admits killing 77 people. The question of his sanity decides whether he will be sent to a psychiatric ward or jail.

Zakia Jafri says she is disappointed and saddened by the SIT report giving a clean chit to Gujarat CM Narendra Modi. She says the truth will come out some day and is confident justice will be delivered.

After launching 4G LTE services here today, Bharti Airtel will shortly roll them out in the other three circles of Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra (excluding Mumbai). "We will launch the 4G LTE service in Bangalore this month, followed by Pune and Chandigarh," Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal said here today. 

Mittal said that the TD-LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology adopted by Airtel would be the platform for future broadband revolution. "We hope that this technology would be emulated and followed by those who got Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) licenses," he said at the launch event.

Our New Delhi correspondent reports that Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan, a 1976 batch IAS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre, has been given an extension of three months beyond his date of superannuation of April 30 pending Parliament's approval of the Finance Bill.

The Rajasthan cadre IAS officer Pradeep Kumar Deb of the 1977 batch was on Tuesday appointed the Sports Secretary in the vacancy caused by Sindhushree Khullar moving on as Secretary in the Planning Commission early this month.

The other appointment cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Appointments headed by the Prime Minister is of Nita Chawdhury, who became the Youth Affairs Secretary with the vacancy of A K Upadhyay.

Curfew in communally sensitive areas of Saidabad and Madannapet in the old city here continued for the third consecutive today, even as police indicated that prohibitory orders may be relaxed from tomorrow, if the situation remains peaceful. 

No untoward incidents were reported from trouble-hit areas and the situation is peaceful. Security check-ups and patrolling have been intensified there and efforts are on to nab those responsible for the communal disturbance on Sunday last, a senior police officer said today.

India has launched a complaint at the World Trade Organisation over the cost of US work visas, which it says are too high and discriminate against a group of Indian IT firms, in the latest sign of prickly trade ties between the two allies.

Read the reuters report.

With just about a week to go before the annual monetary policy review on 17 April, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D Subbarao must be a lonely man.

Read the Firstpost.com report

Cyrus Mistry, the forty-three year-old successor to Ratan Tata, is not only the richest board member on Tata Group's crown jewel TCS, but also owns more than twice the number of shares than the Tata chairman. On 3 April Mistry was inducted as a director on the board of Tata Consultancy Services, which is the largest group company by market valuation. TCS has 226,000-plus employees, worldwide.

Read the Firstpost.com report

A move by Pakistani authorities to acquire iconic Indian actor Dilip Kumar's ancestral home in Peshawar for a sizeable sum of money has triggered a row
involving several persons who have laid claim to the property. 

The government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province recently announced plans to acquire the house in Mohallah Khudadad area of the historical Qissa Khawni Bazar so that it can be preserved as a national heritage site. 

Ikramullah, who currently occupies the house, told a news conference in Peshawar yesterday that he alone has the rights to the property. He rejected claims of ownership by several persons, saying they were looking for an easy way of getting cheap publicity.

He further said Dilip Kumar's father Ghulam Sarwar bought the house when its previous owner, Gul Jee, put it up for sale in 1943. Sarwar subsequently sold the house to Yaqoob Qureshi in 1944.

Army Chief General V K Singh today sent his complaint to the CBI regarding Rs 14 crore alleged bribery offer made to him by a retired officer to clear the supply of a tranche of 600 vehicles. CBI sources said the complaint has been recieved by them and it is being examined. 

Singh, who had made the allegation in a media interview that forced Defence Minister A K Antony to order a CBI inquiry, had alleged in a letter to the agency on March 30 that there was a bribe offer from retired Lt Gen (Retd) Tejinder Singh, the sources said. The agency had asked him to furnish a detailed complaint along with a possible witness list and other supporting documents so that they could proceed with the inquiry, they said.

Details of Lt Gen (Retd) Tejinder Singh's deposition today before a Delhi court.

Tejinder Singh deposed today supporting his complaint for intiating criminal defamation against Army Chief General V K Singh and four others. Even as this happens, the CBI is likely to file an FIR against Tejinder Singh today. The CBI is examining the complaint filed by the Army Chief.

Recording his statements before Metropolitan Magistrat Sudesh Kumar, who had earlier asked Tejinder Singh to record pre-summoning evidence to support his complaint, the former Lieutenant Gen said the allegations levelled against him by the Army Headquarters were absolutely false. 

Tejinder Singh told the court that between March 3 and 5, this year, a number of media reports pointed fingers towards Army Chief Gen V K Singh for having allegedly ordered "unlawful monitoring" of mobiles, particularly in the South lock area here. He said in order to divert the public attention from this news, which pointed fingers at senior functionaries in the Army Headquarters, including Gen V K Singh, the media cell of the Army Headquarters issued a press release on March 5. Tejinder Singh said the press release, taking his name, laid four allegations against him which were all "false". 

He said in the press release, it was alleged that he had offered bribe on behalf of Tatra and Vectra Ltd, which supplies vehicles to BEML. "The allegation was that I had offered bribe on behalf of Tatra and Vectra Ltd, which supplies vehicles to BEML. This allegation is absolutely false, ill-founded and concocted and I deny the same," Tejinder Singh said.

sachin tendulkar @sachin_rt  A big thank you to all my friends and well wishers who are praying for my speedy recovery :-)

Sachin Tendulkar, who sustained a finger injury in his left-hand and was retired hurt, when he tried to fend off an ugly snorter from Chennai Super Kings bowler Doug Bollinger in the IPL opener on Wednesday, tweeted yesterday: "Finger still not looking good. Had to aspirate blood from my finger twice in 4 days." (See the picture.)  

It was the fifth ball of the ninth over and Tendulkar who was batting on 15 got a short ball from Bollinger. It climbed onto him as the delivery hit one of the green patches and reared up uncomfortably. Tendulkar could just fend it off as it hit him on the glove. 

The US delegation led by Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides was taken by surprise when Khar publicly contradicted the President during a meeting held at the Governor's House in Lahore on April 4, diplomatic sources told PTI. 

Zardari was then camping in the capital of Punjab province to interact with workers of his Pakistan People's Party. Nides raised the crucial issue of Pakistan's participation in a conference on Afghanistan to be held at Chicago in May, and Zardari said his government was amenableto discussing the matter if Washington extended a formal invitation, the sources said.

At this point, Khar intervened and said the issue could not be taken up till a joint session of parliament completed an ongoing review of Pakistan-US relations, the sources said. Any discussion on the Chicago conference could be held only after the review, she was quoted as saying.  The sources said the US delegation was surprised by the "argumentative" tone adopted by Khar in the presence of the President, who is perceived as the PPP's main  decision-maker on crucial foreign policy issues.

A PTI report says that Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, who contradicted President Asif Ali Zardari during a meeting with a visiting US diplomat, may see her portfolio changed.

The speculation of the change was sparked by remarks of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani four days after the meeting. Gilani took the top brass in the Foreign Ministry by surprise by saying during an interaction with reporters at hishome in Lahore that a "fresh team" would carry forward talks with India to resolve outstanding issues like the Kashmir. 

Tejinder Singh says he is devastated by the Army HQ attack on him.

Press Council of India Chief Justice Markandey Katju has finally opened his mouth and said something non-controversial. Katju today appealed to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to release Indian national Sarabjit Singh, who is languishing in a Pakistani jail. 

In a letter addressed to Zardari through the Pakistan High Commissioner to India, Katju said that Zardari's visit to India and Ajmer Sharif had created a climate for good relations between the two countries.

"I am appealing to you to order release of Sarabjit Singh and his return to India as a humanitarian gesture, exercising your power of pardon as the Pakistan President," Katju wrote in his letter. "By doing so you will add to the excellent impression among Indians created by your recent visit to Delhi and Ajmer Sharif," he added. 

More media news: Former Network 18 Group CEO Haresh Chawla will be joining India Value Fund Advisors as India partner.  

Chawla will be joining the private equity firm on 1 June. He will be responsible for building and scaling up businesses owned by IVFA across sectors, as well as leading media and entertainment investments at the private equity firm.

A Delhi court starts recording the statement of Lt Gen (Retd) Tejinder Singh in a criminal defamation case against Army Chief Gen V K Singh and others. Army chief Gen V K Singh had named retired Lt Gen Tejinder Singh in his complaint to the Central Bureau of Investigation on the alleged Rs 14 crore bribe offered to him to clear tranche of nearly 600 Tatra trucks.

More on rediff.com

Three-month-old Afreen, battling for life at a government hospital here after being allegedly tortured by her father, would take at least three weeks to
recover, doctors attending on her said today. 

"She is still on ventilator and she had blood transfusion. It will at least take three weeks for her to recover", doctors at Vani Vilas Hospital, where she was admitted on Sunday in the intensive care unit, said. "The baby is getting convulsions so we fear that the brain cells could be damaged. We can have a full assessment only after baby Afreen comes out of the ventilator", they said.

The child has a severe head injury and deep bite marks on the thigh and buttocks. Umar Farook, father of Afreen, has confessed to police that he tried to kill the child because he wanted a boy and not a girl. He has been arrested. The 25-year-old also confessed to having attempted to murder her on earlier occasions, police said.

Khurja, a small industrial town in Uttar Pradesh about two hours from Delhi, at first doesn't seem like a place where Japanese culture has made much headway. But Shamim Ahmed, whose family ceramics factory is on the town's main road, has had a decades-long love affair  with the Japanese art of bonsai.

Read the report on the WSJ

Jagran Prakashan Ltd, which publishes the countrys largest-read newspaper Dainik Jagran, has acquired the Madhya Pradesh-based Hindi daily Nai Dunia for an effective enterprise value of Rs.150 crore. JPL informed BSE on Monday that it has acquired Suvi Info Management (Indore) Pvt. Ltd, which runs Nai Dunia through its subsidiary Nai Dunia Media Pvt. Ltd.

Read

After apparent initial jitters on US slapping a USD 10 million bounty on his head, Pakistan's JuD chief and an alleged 26/11 Mumbai mastermind, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed had decided not to go into hiding. 

Saeed's "friends in certain quarters" had initially advised him to go underground for some time after the US announced the bounty on him last week, sources said. 

A JuD leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the outfit felt it would reflect badly on Saeed and JuD if he went underground. The support from almost all political and religious parties of Pakistan, also may have weighed with the Lashkar-e-Taiba founder not to go underground.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is reportedly fighting for his life in a Singapore hospital with an undisclosed illness. According to a Zimbabwe Mail report, a senior official of Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, said the president was undergoing intensive treatment in Singapore and that some members of his family had joined him after boarding a chartered private jet on Saturday.

The report comes amid revelations that Mugabe had agreed to hand over power to his Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Karunanidhi added that the Kudankulam project was not something new and had been started many years ago and work on it is currently in progress, he said, adding it cannot be "accepted if they rake up the issue now." 

"The Indian government will do what is required," he told reporters at his residence before leaving for the assembly to sign the MLA's register. His remarks came a day after Colombo voiced concern over the possible impact of radiation from India's nuclear power plants in the southern region, as it prepares to raise the issue with global atomic watchdog IAEA.

Kudankulam nuclear plant in India's Southern coast is 250 km from Sri Lanka's northwest coastal town of Mannar.

In what is seen as revenge for India's stand against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC meet, Sri Lanka has threatened to go to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) claiming it is threatened by the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu. Colombo has said that it is concerned about safety in case of a Fukushima-like disaster that may hurt the Island nation.

The official raising of concern with the International Atomic Energy is to be made in September, the power and energy minister of Sri Lanka Champika Ranawaka said.

"We respect the right of India to have nuclear power stations. But our concerns are on the possible radiation affects they could have on Sri Lanka. We have already written a letter," Ranawaka said.

Ranawaka said Sri Lanka's concerns stem from disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima. Sri Lanka would work towards achieving guarantees of safety.

Just in: Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda's wife has been acqutted in an encounter case and will be freed soon. The set by Naxals for the Orissa government to free 30 jailed cadres in exchange for BJD MLA Jhina Hikaka ends today.

The government had agreed to free over 27 jailed Naxals in return for the MLA and Italian tourist Paolo Boscusco who is being held captive by another Naxal faction in Kandhamal.

But the state police has come out strongly against the government, threatening to boycott all anti-Naxal operations if all those arrested are released.

India desperately needs to ugrade the armed forces's war-fighting capabilities and tackle the problem of ammunition deficiency if it is to fight and win on the battlefields of the 21st century, says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).

Read the exclusive report on rediff.com.

A 38-year-old constable was killed and his colleague seriously injured when a speeding Mercedes, allegedly driven by a young hotelier, hit them while
they were on night patrol in West Delhi early this morning. The incident took place in Paschim Vihar B-1 Block at around 2 am when Gurdeep Singh, who owns two restaurants in South Delhi and Gurgaon, rammed his car into Deepak Singh Chauhan (38) and Amit Kumar (24).

Chauhan, who hailed from Ranchi and joined police 18 years ago, was dragged for some distance and died on the spot while Kumar, who belongs to Baghpat in UP, suffered serious injuries. Chauhan is survived by wife and two children. 

Singh fled the spot soon after the incident, leaving the constables bleeding but was arrested from his Greater Kailash residence two hours after the incident. He claimed to police that he panicked after the accident and fled the spot.

School teacher Rupam Pathak was today sentenced to life imprisonment by a special CBI court for killing BJP MLA Rajkishore Keshri in Bihar's Purnia town last year. Designated CBI Judge B N Singh had earlier pronounced her guilty of stabbing Keshri to death on January 4, 2011 and fixed today as the date to decide the quantum of punishment. Soon after the murder of Keshri, the chief minister had recommended a CBI probe into the killing.

Read more on the Indian Express.

Army vs govt: Call for action against coup scaremonger (The Times of India)
Sections in the govt seem to have come around to suspect that the artificial scare may have been scripted to prejudice the govt against Army chief Gen V K Singh. Read

Abduction: New conditions by Maoists make release of hostages uncertain (Indian Express)
Naxals holding Laxmipur MLA Jhina Hikaka hostage have demanded immediate release of 30 people. Read

Court verdict on Zakia Jafri's plea for final SIT report likely (Hindustan Times)
An Ahmedabad court is expected to decide on Zakia Jafri's plea for a copy of the final report of the SIT on the 2002 Gulbarg society massacre today. Read

23 convicted, 23 acquitted in post-Godhra riots case (The Hindu)
The Ode riot in which 24 people were burnt alive in two incidents by a mob on March 1 and 2, 2002 was one of the nine cases investigated by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team. Read

Amitabh Bachchan ill again, may undergo CT-scan today (Hindustan Times)
Two months after his surgery, mega-star Amitabh Bachchan is again ill and suffering from "excruciating pain" since past couple of days. He is likely to undergo a CT-scan at the Seven Hill Hospital in Mumbai today. Read

Thank God I'm home': Yuvraj Singh starts new innings (The Times of India)
"Thank God I am home" was all Indian batsman Yuvraj Singh said when he returned to Delhi after completing a successful chemotherapy course in the US. Read