"It is a victory of democracy because some Muslim organisations, including Darul Uloom Deoband, had opposed the visit to India in a democratic way," Vice-Chancellor of Darul Uloom Deoband, Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani told reporters.

"I am grateful to the national president of the morcha M A Siddiqui for extending support to Congress during UP elections," party national general secretary Digvijaya Singh told reporters during a joint press conference in Lucknow. 

He said that Siddiqui has been raising issues related to Muslims for the last 18 years. "I extend my gratitude towards the morcha, a non-political organisation, for supporting the Congress," Singh said. 

 Announcing support to the Congress, Siddiqui said that due to 18 years struggle of the morcha, reservation for Dalit and OBC Muslims has become a big issue. He said that during the Dalit Muslim Reservation Mahasammelan organised in December last year, Singh not only announced reservation for minorities, but also fulfilled it by earmarking 4.5 per cent within the 27 per cent quota for OBCs. 

"A delegation of the morcha also met Rahul Gandhi, who assured all possible help and support for betterment of Dalit and backward muslims," the morcha president said.

"Issue notice to CBI for March 13," Justice ML Mehta said while admitting the petition of Behura who, along with ex-telecom minister A Raja, is in jail since his arrest on February 2 last year. 

The moment advocate Aman Lekhi, appearing for Behura, started advancing his arguments, Justice Mehta said, "I have kept similar petitions of other accused in the case for hearing on March 12 and 13. Let it be heard with them."

London Times: Rushdie's invitation to JLF "provoked protests from prominent Indian Muslims." Wrong - protests from two ill-informed clerics.

Anand Paranjpe, Lok Sabha member from Kalyan, made a dramatic entry at the press conference being addressed by Pawar and presented a bouquet to the NCP leader, who said the Sena MP was meeting him for "developmental issues". 

However, there are indications that Paranjpe has made up his mind to leave the Shive Sena and is waiting for the party to take action, so that he can retain his Lok Sabha  membership. 

"The Sena which was what Bal Thackeray wanted is no more. Loyal Shiv Sainiks are being sidelined in today's Sena," Paranjpe said. "Earlier Sena was a family. Everyone shared sorrows together but that is not the case now. The only name that came to me when I thought about development issues was that of Pawarsaheb and I have come to meet him," he said.

"Calling off the visit is Rushdie's personal decision and the government has nothing to do with it," Digvijay told reporters in Lucknow in a reply to a question. "Who has stopped him? He does not need a visa to come to India," he said, adding that "there is no law" to stop the author from visiting the country.

Bhupathi took to Twitter to announce the happy news. "It's a girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Lara Dutta, I Love u....," the 37-year-old wrote. 

Last week, Lara, 33, was busy in setting up her house for the new arrival.

The TMC, which is keen to expand its profile from a regional party to a national one, is planning to contest at least 200 seats in the 403-member UP assembly. 

"No agreement could be reached for seat-sharing till date. But we are still in discussion with JD-U," TMC leader and Union Minister Sultan Ahmed said in New Delhi today.

The cameraman had placed the camera in the OB van and he along with his driver went out for 15 minutes but when they returned they could not locate the equipment, a senior police official said. Everything happened within a span of 15 minutes and the camera was stolen from the back cabin of the OB van, he said.

"By not insisting to continue as the IOA president Kalmadi has done the right thing, but at the same time he has not resigned yet," Maken told reporters in New Delhi. "So even though, while welcoming Kalmadi's stand that he is not insisting to remain as the IOA president, I think there should be a permanent mechanism in place. We should not leave it to the wisdom or will of the accused (to continue in his post)," he said. 

Kalmadi was yesterday granted bail by the Delhi high court after spending nearly nine months at Tihar Jail.

If you can take a brisk walk or climb two flights of stairs without experiencing chest pain or gasping, you can start having sex again, the United States-based leading doctor's group has advised. 

However, all heart patients must consult with their doctors before resuming their sex life, the authors say. Read the report on WebMD.

"I expect Caritas to respect the sentiment of not getting involved in religious mobilisation. That is not the objective," Ramesh said inaugurating the golden jubilee celebrations of Caritas India, a Catholic organisation. "The objective is to use the powers of the organisation like yours to help us breakdown the deficit of trust between the government and the tribal communities. That is our objective," he said.

On Friday the Karnataka high court dismissed his plea challenging the Lokayukta probe against him in connection with an illegal mining case, and ruled that the proceedings against him will continue. The case pertains to a time when Krishna was chief minister of Karnataka. 

The Lokayukta court had ordered a probe by its police into a private complaint against three former state chief ministers, including Krishna, following allegations that they had permitted illegal mining during their time in office, and Krishna had challenged the ruling in the high court. In vain, it turns out now.

However, the commission will not be given access to Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving Pakistani gunman who is currently lodged in Mumbai's high-security Arthur Road jail.

The commission is expected to record the statements of the officials who recorded Kasab's statements, additional chief metropolitan magistrate RV Sawant Waghule and the investigating officer Ramesh Mahale, as well as of the doctors who carried out the post-mortem on the bodies of the other Pakistani terrorists who were killed in the attack.

An official statement was read out, Abhishek says, by Sanjoy Roy, produceer of the festival, that Rushdie will NOT be attending the Jaipur LitFest.

This is what Rushdie said in his statement:

'For the last several days I have made no public comment about my proposed trip to the Jaipur Literary Festival at the request of the local authorities in Rajasthan, hoping that they would put in place such precautions as might be necessary to allow me to come and address the Festival audience in circumstances that were comfortable and safe for all.

'I have now been informed by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to "eliminate" me. While I have some doubts about the accuracy of this intelligence, it would be irresponsible of me to come to the Festival in such circumstances; irresponsible to my family, to the festival audience, and to my fellow writers. I will therefore not travel to Jaipur as planned.'

Salman Rushdie later tweeted: Very sad not to be at jaipur. I was told bombay mafia don issued weapons to 2 hitmen to "eliminate" me. Will do video link instead. Damn.

"We are identifying more rebels and also all those party leaders who are working against the interests of the BJP in the state. Like the Congress, we will follow hot pursuit policy against them," said Satish Lakhera, a BJP spokesman. 

The Congress has so far expelled as many as 32 rebellious leaders which include Jot Singh Bist and Mantri Prasad Naithani, who are theparty's  prominent faces in the state.

Acting on a tipoff, the police raided Bhelahi Lachhi village and nabbed the Maoists -- identified as Vijay Paswan, Mahesh Patel and Roshan Kumar -- director general of police Abhayanand said. 

The police seized four mobile phones, one pistol, seven cartridges, one country-made bomb and a map from the ultras, he said. The trio was wanted in several cases of violence in the district, Abhayanand said.

US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (AfPak) Marc Grossman met Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai and held discussions on the reconciliation process to bring peace to the war-torn nation. 

"We reviewed the situation and I appreciate his (Mathai's) desire to continue the conversation between India and the US on this issue," he told reporters after the meeting. Grossman, whose request to visit Pakistan was turned down by the government there, will be travelling to Afghanistan tomorrow.

The apex court directs the income-tax department to return Rs 2,500 crore deposited by Vodafone in compliance of its interim order within two months. 

The Supreme Court also directs its registry to return within four weeks the bank guarantee of Rs 8,500 crore given by the company.

The manifesto for the coming assembly elections in the state also promised laptops to intermediate passed students, loans at four per cent interest to small and marginal farmers, pension to those above 65 years and loan waivers.

Releasing the party's manifesto at Congress Bhavan in Imphal today, Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee president Gaikhangam, in the presence of Chief Minister Ibobi Singh, said the party will improve the law and order situation and withdraw AFSPA which has been a long-standing demand of the people of the state. 

While on Manipur and AFSPA, read what Sumit Bhattacharya had filed on the iron lady of Manipur, Irom Sharmila's fast against the AFSPA, here, and what Irom Sharmila herself wrote for rediff.com 

A lower court had, on December 23, issued summons to 21 web sites, including Google India and Yahoo! India, for allegedly committing offences of criminal conspiracy, sale of obscene books and sale of obscene objects to young persons. Google India and Yahoo! India had moved the Delhi high court against the magistrate's order.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice SH Kapadia, today expressed displeasure over annexing the opinion of former chief justices in the petition on the issue, and said it is not expressing any opinion on the merits of the case. It is purely a service matter and entertaining a PIL will set a wrong precedent and create chaos, the bench added

"There would be more grass and there would be more bounce. In many ways it would be similar to last time," said curator Damien Hough. The "last time" Hough referred to was the Test match against England two years ago when the visitors won by an innings and 71 runs.

"I just do not know from where and how the media manages to get such totally baseless and false stories about me," Singh told PTI. 

Two TV channels had carried news items yesterday saying that Singh has decided to quit as the UP in-charge.

 The warrant was issued by the Sewri sessions court yesterday after the Supreme Court cancelled his bail. 

 "Pereira surrendered before us this morning. The Sewri court had issued a arrest warrant against him last evening. Pereira will be produced before the court soon," Mangesh Pote, senior inspector at Khar police station in the city's western suburbs said.

The DIG, police (control), Nepal Das, said the farmer, Shaha Alam of Tarakpur village, went to till his field at about 6.30 am when he was shot dead by BGB personnel. They also tried to pull the body across the border but the villagers rushed to the spot and prevented them from doing so, Das said. 

 The villagers managed to detain a head constable of the BGB, who was later handed over to the Border Security Force personnel.

On Wednesday, additional solicitor general AS Chandiok, representing the telecom department, had told the tribunal bench headed by justice SB Sinha that TDSAT can only decide on a dispute between a licencee and licensor and has no jurisdiction to entertain the petitions of operators challenging the government's directive to stop 3G roaming agreements.

TDSAT on Wednesday heard submissions from the DoT, and five telecom operators -- Bharti, Vodafone, Idea, Tatas and Aircel -- in the matter and reserved judgment.

Today, however, the tribunal dismissed the government's plea.

Foxbusiness.com reports that the FBI has charged the site's founders and five others with running "an international organized criminal enterprise" responsible for "massive online piracy."

Quoting a joint statement from the US justice department and the FBI, the web site said Megaupload Limited and sister company Vestor Limited generated "more than $175 million in criminal proceeds" and caused "more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners" through the piracy of "numerous types of copyrighted works .

CNN.com reports that stung to the quick, "Hacktivist" collective Anonymous took credit for taking down US Department of Justice, FBI and entertainment company websites, following the  arrests in one of the federal government's largest anti-piracy crackdowns.

Elumalai, who suffered bleeding injuries on his face, had been admitted to the government hospital in Puducherry and his condition was stated to be out of danger, AIADMK Puducherry unit secretary A Anbalagan, MLA, said.

Well aware that the ultimate economic impact to the US economy would be multiple of that, US President Barack Obama yesterday targeted India, Brazil and China to attract more foreign tourists, so that his country can retain the status of top global tourist destination.

Modi started his fasts in September last year, with a 3-day affair for communal harmony, and has since gone on a plethora of fasts. 

Not to be left behind, Modi's political rival Shankarsinh Vaghela too will launch a counter-fast in Godhra today.

Though writer William Dalrymple did mention that even though the media was focussing on just one writer, there were over 260 others too who would be attending the festival.

The 68-year-old musician married Durning in front of just six guests at their home in Southampton, New York on January 14, reported Contactmusic. News of the marriage was announced by radio DJ Howard Stern on Twitter, after he interviewed Roger.

The foreigners were abducted at gun-point by three men in a car from Western Fort Colony at Qasim Bela near Kot Addu, 400 km from Lahore yesterday, a senior police official told PTI. 

The German national, identified only as 45-year-old Burnd, and the 38-year-old Italian, identified only as Giovanni, worked for the NGO Welthungerhilfe as project director and administrator respectively.

"I wasn't in other administrations, so I didn't see the interactions between US presidents and various world leaders. But the friendships and the bonds of trust that I've been able to forge with a whole range of leaders is precisely, or is a big part of, what has allowed us to execute effective diplomacy," Obama said in an interview to Time magazine.

So now we know Dr Singh's fondness for Obama is not one-sided:)

 The 30-share BSE index, which gained over 192 points in the previous session, rose by another 116.08 points, or 0.56 per cent, to 16,759.82, with all sectoral indices gaining up to 1.23 per cent. 

 The wide-based National Stock Exchange Nifty Index moved up by 32.30 points, or 0.65 per cent to 5,050.70 points.

If you have been going brrrr this winter and waiting for it to end, here's some bad news from the Times of India. On the other hand, if you are the kind who will take out your warm clothes and make a lark out of the chill winds blowing, you will love this. The met department says the cold may last till winter, thanks to La Nina. La Nina, which in Spanish means 'the girl', is a condition when surface temperatures in the south Pacific Ocean fall below normal.

The Indian Express reports on the massacre of seven  tribal villagers in Jharkhand's Kunti district.

Breaking his silence on a Christian group's protest against his song Hosanna, maestro AR Rahman has told HT Cafe, the Hindustan Times's supplement, that he spent months doing research into the meaning of the term and that he discussed the meaning of the word before composing the song. 

DNA in Mumbai reports on a mother's isolation and a family's trials when TB had no cure.

Mumbai Mirror reports on the death of a young girl in Colaba, how the psycho who killed her is believed to have bashed her for an hour after killing her.

The Hindu newspaper reports that the last word has not been said in the UID war, with Home Minister P Chidambaram taking the issue to the prime minister.