Senior BJP leader LK Advani may phone Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha on Friday, sources tell Rediff.com.

 

Advani may ask her to allow AIDMK MPs to attend Parliament on Monday, August 29, to be supportive and to stand up with BJP in its demand for PM Singh's resignation in coalgate, and exempt them from participating in AIADMK general council on the same day in Chennai.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has called a dawn-to-dusk Jamshedpur Bandh tomorrow to protest against ransacking of an amusement park here on Tuesday and brickbatting during a rally on August 10. 

New Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh today appeared to be critical of his predecessor Arup Patnaik's handling of the Azad maidan violence which cost him his job, observing the morale of the force is "down" since the incident. 

Fake twitter accounts in the name of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's office continue to remain operational today even as the Government pushed the micro-blogging site to remove such pages. 

Osama bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad was definitely known to "somebody" in Pakistan, Islamabad's former top diplomat in the US, Husain Haqqani, has said, arguing that his country owes an explanation to the world about the slain Al Qaeda leader's local benefactor. 

The Defence Ministry today said it was talking only to the French Dassault Aviation for procuring 126 Rafale aircraft under a multi-billion dollar tender. "We are not talking to anyone except Dassault Aviation whose Rafale aircraft has been selected as the lowest bidder in the multi-billion dollar contract," Defence Ministry sources said. 

Six people -- labourers of the Border Roads Organisation's General Reserve Engineer Force -- have reportedly been injured in what early reports described as a cloud burst near Udaipur in Himachal Pradesh's Lahaul-Spiti district. 

Pakistan today summoned a senior US diplomat here to protest against a string of drone strikes since last week, saying the attacks by the spy planes were unlawful and a violation of the country's sovereignty. 

The government today increased the SMS limit per day from five to 20 with immediate effect. 

Mobile users were restricted to sending only five SMSes per day from August 18 to check spread of rumours which fuelled panic among people from the northeast.

"We have banned bulk SMSes and MMSes for 15 days," Union Home Secretary RK Singh had said last week.

An analysis of the latest round of Internet censorship in India. Read

The list of Twitter handles that have been blocked. Read

The government today issued guidelines for its departments using social media networks asking them not to post confidential information and "unverified" facts.

With 40 million facebook and 16 million twitter users in India, social media have emerged as a powerful platform for forming an opinion as well as generating mass support, the Information Technology Ministry said in its 38-page guidelines issued today.

"Great care must be taken to avoid propagation of unverified facts and frivolous misleading rumours," it said. It asked persons handling social media for all government agencies including public sector undertakings not to "comment and respond unless authorised to do so especially in the matters that are sub-judice, draft legislations or relating to other individuals".

The Supreme Court will pass its order tomorrow on petitions seeking a probe against Finance Minister P Chidambaram for his alleged role in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

A bench of justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan, which had not issued notices to the government and Chidambaram so far, will decide whether the petitions filed by Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy and an NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation are maintainable or not.

Swamy had moved the court challenging the trial court order which had held that Home Minister P Chidambaram did not indulge in any criminal conspiracy in the 2G scam and refused to make him an accused in the case.

Swamy tweets: ‏@Swamy39 Judgment on PC tomorrow

Meanwhile, Pankaj Pachauri, the PM's media advisor tweets on the dos and don'ts of using Twitter. Have a look

Twitter has responded to the Union home ministry's dictat to block all pages saying it is not possible due to technical reasons. The MHA has told to the IT ministry to serve an ultimatum to social networking site Twitter if it does not block webpages which continue to host morphed and inflammatory contents.

Union home secretary R.K. Singh has asked the department of electronics and information technology (Deit) to take punitive action against erring sites if they refuse to cooperate and comply with the government orders.

Nearly 30 webpages on Twitter are said to be hosting such morphed and inflammatory content still despite the government order. Singh has told Deit to take appropriate action if the offending webpages are not blocked immediately.'

Mumbai's top cop was made the scapegoat for the recent attacks on migrants from India's northeast, though he'd received praise from many quarters for preventing the violence from spiraling out of control. But the biggest irony is that his ouster comes at the insistence of one of the city-state's most abrasive, anti-migrant politicians. Read

China is rising -- fast and furious. So why can't the rest of Asia get its act together?
Read

The Cabinet has cleared the Bill on Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, while the Land Acquisition Bill has been deferred.

Everything's coming up roses in the Tibetan capital, according to the government-run China Daily, which has the largest circulation of any English-language newspaper in China. An excerpt: "Lhasa, the city of sunlight, topped an annual survey of residents' sense of happiness in Chinese cities. The capital of the Tibet autonomous region has ranked at the top of the survey conducted by China Central Television for five consecutive years."

Read more

Scarred by fighting and violence, a generation of traumatized kids is paying the real price of the conflict. Read

The 'cheeky chappy' will be out of the public eye for some time but will likely laugh off his nude photo scandal. The real loser, will be his father -- who promoted his youngest son too soon. Read

Buzz from Parliament: BJP MP Smriti Irani was taking photographs of BJP women MPs, apart from SP MP Jaya Bachchan, on her iPhone at Central Hall. One Union Minister in chaste Hindi commented whether Jaya was deserting Samajwadi Party and joining the BJP. Smriti Irani ignored the comment and went on taking pictures.

In fact, whenever UPA president Sonia Gandhi walks across Central Hall from
her office to the Lok Sabha, almost all MPs cutting across party lines stand up and greet her with a namaste. But today, with the third day of the Parliament logjam, many BJP MPs turned their faces in the opposite direction when they saw Sonia entering Central Hall.

A combative Sonia Gandhi today asked Congress MPs not to be defensive on the CAG report on coal blocks allocation and to aggressively counter the offensive launched by the BJP which is demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue.

Gandhi told a group of Congress MPs from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, who met her this morning after the BJP-led opposition forced adjournments in both Houses, to take the Opposition onslaught head on and not be defensive.

The MPs, who met Gandhi included Sandip Dikshit, Deepinder Hooda, Jyoti Mirdha, Anu Tandon, Ranee Narah and Sanjay Nirupam. 

The violence against the police and the media at the recent rally in Mumbai held by Muslims to protest the killing of Muslims in Assam and Myanmar took everyone by surprise.

While the Mumbai police's remarkable restraint avoided a larger
conflagration, it failed to anticipate the violence despite clear signs. Ever since the 1992-93 communal riots in Mumbai, fi rst the Congress Party and later the ationalist Congress Party have cultivated a few Muslim leaders who act as "brokers" and have hardly any grass-roots support within the community. Read

India's federal auditor (CAG) has raised an alarm over the nation's nuclear safety, saying in a report that a weak regulator and very low level of fines-- just $9-- for safety violators pose grave risks for the country. Read

The Paris Review Daily pays tribute to the late Prabuddha Dasgupta. We were saddened to hear of the death of legendary Indian photographer Prabuddha Dasgupta last week at fifty-eight. As Geoff Dyer wrote in issue 200, with Dasgupta's work, "we are in the realm of dreams and memories" exactly whose is never clear.' See

The government is likely to revise the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill (one among the 31 Bills the government has lined up for consideration and passing during the monsoon session of Parliament). The changes include...
-- Land can be acquired by government for private-public purpose, but consent of 80 per cent of project affected people will be requried.
-- The new bill will come as a relief for state governments and real estate firms.

"Yes, I have talked to her a little bit," Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters outside Parliament while referring to his meeting with the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

Asked by when the current impasse could be resolved, the Home Minister said, "Let's see. I hope that by Monday the matter will be resolved...I am trying to settle it by tomorrow (also). Let's see."

The meeting came against the backdrop of a deadlock between the government and the BJP over the CAG report on coal block allocation, with the main Opposition being adamant on its demand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation.

Due to the deadlock, Parliament has failed to function for the last three days. Earlier in the day, Shinde maintained that the government is ready for a discussion.

He said, "So far their (BJP) stand is that they want to stall the House. But the government is prepared to discuss at length...unless the House starts, how can you discuss?"

The Anna Hazare movement must measure success not in terms of electoral gains but its ability to set the political agenda. Read the report on the Hindu.
That's a column by political analyst Yogendra Yadav and merits a read. 

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde is meeting BJP leader Sushma Swaraj in a bid to break the logjam in Parliament over the CAG report on coal block allocation.

The government however admitted today that it did not visualise the deadlock ending before next week. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said talks to end the stalemate were not possible before Monday.

Indian Internet advocates and journalists are in an uproar this week over the news that the government has blocked access to around 300 websites, pages, and social media accounts in an effort to quell communal violence in the turbulent northeast.
That's Madeline's Earp's blog on the Committee to Protect Journalists. Read

Indefinite curfew was re-imposed in Kokrajhar the epicentre of the violence between Bodo tribals and illegal Bangladeshi migrants in Assam following fresh violence in Dhubri district Wednesday night in which one person was injured and two people went missing.

The disturbing spread of honor killing. Read the report on Foreign Policy. 

Five more alleged rioters have been arrested in connection with the Azad Maidan violence here, taking the total number of arrests in the case so far to 48, police said today.

The five were apprehended from the city after they were clearly seen in the CCTV footages indulging in violence at Azad Maidan, police said, but did not divulge their names.

During the last two days, 19 people were arrested from various parts of the city, police said, adding that two of them, identified as Niyazuddin Shaikh (28) and Mohammed Hussain Ansari (21), were produced before a metropolitan magistrate court yesterday which remanded them in police custody till August 28.

Details of the top secret US special forces mission to kill Osama Bin Laden are set to be revealed for the first time. Read more

Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar on Thursday said that she is trying her best to run the house, as the BJP-led opposition stalled the proceedings on alleged irregularities in allocation of coal blocks.

"I am trying my best to run the house. But there seems to be a stalemate. Let''s see when we get over it," she told mediapersons outside the Parliament here. Kumar further said she wanted the all-party meeting to take place at the earliest so that the Parliament functions without any disruption. "I want the meeting to take place as soon as possible," she said.

The government today said it did not visualise the deadlock ending before next week. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said talks to end the stalemate were not possible before Monday.

He said a week is likely to be lost due to disruption as "I am told that tomorrow also the Houses will not function." "Do you think the answer to break the deadlock is to demand the resignation (of the Prime Minister)? They are not moving forward. Today we had invited them for talks. But they are probably not willing to talk. Perhaps they will be ready to talk on Monday," he told reporters outside Parliament House.

Also read: CAGs Audit Filled With Holes

An analysis of a leaked list of the websites blocked by Indian Internet Service Providers on directions from the Department of Telecom bring to light the inconsistencies in India's online censorship efforts. Read

Another IPS officer S P Gupta has been appointed Additional DG (training), Patil said. Describing the transfer as "routine administrative process", Patil said the file in connection with Patnaik's transfer was first moved by the state DG office on July 6.

The revised file was moved on August 8, Patil said. The chief secretary had chaired a meeting on August 16 in this regard, he said.

The transfer comes two days after Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, during a massive rally in Mumbai, had demanded immediate ouster of Patnaik over the violence at Azad Maidan, for allegedly failing to control the situation during a demonstration to protest alleged persecution of Muslims in Assam and Myanmar. Patnaik was also in line of fire by the Opposition for handling of the Azad Maidan mayhem.

And another piece written by Satyapal Singh for rediff.co when he was the police commissioner of Nagpur on the unlikely subject of Lord Ram. Read 

Mumbai's new police commissioner Satyapal Singh spoke to rediff.com in 2008 when he was Additional Commissioner of Police. Here is a first-person account from the man who wanted to become a scientist. Read 

We saw the best of the Mumbai police commissioner from the way he handled a volatile situation. Will we see the best of him again from the way he pursues the cases against the rioters, asks B Raman in an earlier report. That question, is now, redundant. Read the column on rediff.com.  

Patnaik is under fire for mishandling the August 11 violence at Azad Maidan in Mumbai during a rally organised by city-based Raza Academy and other outfits to protest incidents in Assam and Myanmar. Several policemen were injured in the melee. The home department, headed by Nationalist Congress Party's R R Patil, submitted the proposal to shunt out Patnaik four days ago, according to sources. Opposition Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena  have demanded Patnaik's resignation.

Just in: Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik has been transferred, announces Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil. Satyapal Singh is now the new police commissioner of Mumbai. Patnaik has been promoted to DG rank and will be MD Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation.

Mamata says she favours an all-party meet to sort out differences among parties. She also reiterated that the TMC was not in favour of FDI on retail and would stick to their manifesto. 

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee addressing the press after meeting finance minister P Chidambaram says they discussed the state's financial situation, but insisted it was a regular meeting. "It is customary to meet new ministers, but we did discuss state issues like the high price of fertilizers and told the him to save farmers," she says. "What Punjab can afford Bengal cannot afford. Bengal is poor," she said and added, "he said he will take care of the issue."  

Self-fulfilling rumors of ethnic violence spread like a virus across newly wired India, sending 300,000 citizens fleeing and leading the government to extreme measures.
Read

Pictures of a sheepish Prince Harry emerge hours after pictures of him caught cavorting naked with strangers in a five-star Vegas hotel hit the internet. Wearing a blue shirt, a cream-coloured panama hat and sunglasses, the sheepish prince was seen chatting with friends and hugging a mystery blonde in a Los Angeles car park yesterday. Read more 

Hamid Ansari, who called the meeting in his chamber after the ruckus in Rajya Sabha for the third day over CAG report on coal block allocation, heard views of the political leaders. Among those who attended the meeting were Ravishankar Prasad (BJP), Derek O'brien (TMC), Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena) and D Raja (CPI).

A leader said that the meeting remained inconclusive and Ansari was scheduled to hold another round of consultations with party leaders. Parliament has witnessed turmoil for the past three days with BJP members demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over CAG's findings on coal block allocation, which according to the auditor led to "undue benefits" to private parties to the tune of Rs 1.86 lakh crore.

NASA's Curiosity rover has captured a strange white light dancing across the horizon of Mars and four blobs hovering in the sky, which UFO hunters claim are alien ships monitoring humans' baby steps into the universe.

While the images are certainly a curiosity, NASA and photography experts insist they are nothing more than blemishes on the images, picked up by the camera lens sitting on the rover at a distance of 350 million miles away. NASA has not commented on any of the strange sightings so far, but alien hunters have suggested that these are alien ships monitoring humans' baby steps into the universe, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

YouTube user StephenHannardADGUK, part of a group called Alien Disclosure UK, spotted the anomalies on the NASA images, publicly available on the space agency's website, and applied a series of filters to try to shed light on the mystery.

"Four objects caught by Mars Curiosity, very difficult to make out on original image so I have used a few filters to highlight," the paper quoted him as saying, referring to the four pin-points of light pictured in the skies of Mars. "What are these four objects? UFOs, Dust particles, or something else? As always you decide," the user said.

The Union government has stepped up its efforts to stop what it perceives an online campaign of misinformation and rumour-mongering in the wake of Assam riots and has blocked several Twitter accounts, including two belonging to journalists, considered sympathetic to far Right in India.

The blocked accounts include those maintained by Kanchan Gupta, who until a few months ago was with the Pioneer newspaper, and Shiv Aroor, a deputy editor with Headlines Today news channel. More on the Times of India.

Shiv Aroor ‏@ShivAroor My Twitter acct works fine when I log in, but when I try to go to the URL profile on Chrome/IExplorer, it says "blocked". #GOIBlocks

Chetan Bhagat may be India's best known banker-turned-novelist, but he's certainly not the only one. Read

And there you go, Lok Sabha has been adjourned till 2 pm. That's approximately Rs 84 lakh down the drain. Rajya Sabha has been adjourned till 12.30 pm. 

India's Internet censorship effort earns an unwanted pat on the back from the father of censorship -- China. Read

When Parliament reconvenes in a few minutes, this is the agenda for the day. Unless of course, it's adjourned again.

Lok Sabha:
Chemical Weapons Convention (Amendment) Bill, 2012
Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Work Place Bill, 2010
North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Amendment Bill, 2011
Discussion on need to take immediate steps to restore reservation in promotion in favour of SCs and STs

Rajya Sabha
Whistle Blowers Protection Bill, 2011

Each day that in Parliament costs the exchequer approximately Rs 1.7 crore.

Vice President and Rajya Sabhha chairperson Hamid Ansari's all-party meeting with MPs to end the impasse is inconclusive. This is the third day that there has been a logjam in Parliament -- with every hour costing the exchequer an estimated Rs 21 lakh. 

The couple have been out of the news ever since they announced their split last month, but Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are back now with news that they have finalised their divorce with a multi-million pound deal.  

Holmes, 33, is expected to get 2 million pounds for each year they were married, leaving the 'Mission Impossible' star more than 10 million pounds out of pocket.  

The pair finalised their quickie divorce on Monday, which was signed off by a New York judge.  

"The matter is finally resolved and over. All records are confidential and not available in any format for disclosure,' the Daily Star quoted Cruise's lawyer Sheila Riesel, as saying.  

Holmes gets custody of their six-year-old daughter Suri, while her ex-husband keeps most of his estimated 160-million pound fortune.  

Cruise, will have generous access rights and the chance to travel with his daughter for work.

Shashi Tharoor's column for the Hindu: Cyberspace is too important for its security to be handed over to those who want to lock it up. Read

At least 18 passengers returning from a pilgrimage died, while over 50 got injured after a tractor turned turtle in Ambaji, Gujarat, today. Details awaited.

The BJP has played true to form in immobilising Parliament over its demand that the Prime Minister resign in the wake of the Comptroller and Auditor-General's adverse report on the allocation of coal blocks. It is a behaviour pattern witnessed ever since the BJP moved to the Opposition benches following its shock defeat in the 2004 general election. Read the editorial on the Hindu. 

Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today. On the anvil will be the  restructuring of over Rs 2 lakh crore debt that Bengal owes to the Centre. Sources said that the Prime Minister and President Pranab Mukherjee had met to discuss a package for West Bengal and the latter had expressed his desire to support the state in repayment of loans. More

Two working days wasted as the Parliament has been adjourned within minutes of the session beginning. Parliament will resume at noon. Both Houses of Parliament were adjourned without any business being conducted for two consecutive days yesterday as the BJP demanded the PM's resignation over the coal allocation report. Rajya Sabha chair Hamid Ansari has called for an all-party meet to end the impasse. He will meet MPs in his chambers in a bit.

The head of Kingfisher Airline's pilot training flew a woman in the cockpit on a Delhi-Mumbai flight and when the cabin crew protested, told them to stay away during the journey, reports the Times of India. 

The crew of the flight IT 304 of August 19 have now lodged a complaint with the management, saying the pilot flouted DGCArules by flying an unauthorized person in the cockpit. "We will investigate the matter," Kingfisher spokesman Prakash Mirpuri said.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation too has ordered a probe and warned of strict action if the pilot is found guilty.  Read more

Pranab hosts dinner for Mamata

BJP's stalling of Parl on Coalgate 'unreasonable': UPA

Cong, BJP locked in confrontation in JPC meet

Forbes names Sonia 6th most powerful woman

Arms case: ED arrests Abhishek Verma, wife

Assam: ULFA doves suspend arrested leader

4,000 NE students back in Bengaluru

SC extends ban on tourism in core areas of tiger reserves

Give us proof and see how we act: Malik on allegations

Click here for yesterday's news updates!

Two Kenyan pilots and two German tourists have been killed in a plane crash in Kenya's Masai Mara national park, Kenyan police said.

Read the full story on BBC!

Eurozone finance chief Jean-Claude Juncker has said the Greek people have to be aware the country is facing its "last chance".

 

After a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, Juncker praised the nation's "tremendous efforts" so far to cut its deficit. But he said "priority number one" was further consolidation of the public finances of Greece.

 

Read the full story on BBC

PTI: A former journalist, who allegedly forwarded threat SMSes pertaining to the recent incidents in Assam and Myanmar, was detained today for questioning, police said. 

 

Identified as Shanawaz Hussain, who used to work as a journalist earlier, was detained from his house from Mango police station area in Jamshedpur following inputs provided by the intelligence department, they said. 

 

A police team seized a computer from his house, the sources said, adding that all the saved threat SMSes have been deleted from the computer.