After virtually shutting the doors on 100 sacked Air India pilots, Government is working on a plan to replace them with those shed by some private airlines
like Jet Airways. 

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh today said alternative plans were being made to ensure that operations of the state-run carrier were normalised within two-three months so that the revival plan could be put in place. 

Observing that there were about 500 expat pilots in the country, he said, "We have to get in touch with them." There are about 60-odd expat pilots, trained on wide-body aircraft like Boeing 777s or Airbus A-300s, whose contracts with Jet Airways have ended or are about to expire.

Tata Steel today announced plans to set up a Rs 30,000 crore steel plant in Karnataka as the government-sponsored Global Investors' Meet (GIM) 2012
commenced here. 

The six million tonne per annum capacity plant would come up up Haveri district, Tata Steel Vice-Chairman B Muthuraman said at the inaugural GIM function. Aditya Birla Group CMD Kumar Mangalam Birla said the group proposed to invest Rs 7,000 crore in the state. This includes setting up a four million tonne per annum capacity cement plant at a cost of Rs 2,750 crore.

The US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that the U.S. is "reaching limits of patience as far as Pakistan is concerned". During a trip to Kabul for talks with military leaders, Panetta said it is "difficult to achieve peace in Afghanistan as long as there is a safe haven for terrorists in Pakistan."

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Amid reports that Ramdev and Team Anna were not on the same page, Kiran Bedi today said there were no differences between them and they are "two sides of the same coin, fighting a common goal". 

"There are no differences between us...Ramdev is fighting on the issue of black money, while Team Anna is strong on the issue of Janlokpal Bill...Both are two aspects of a coin and we should not look at them separately," she said. The Team Anna member was talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function.

"We all, including Arvind Kejriwal, are working together," Bedi said, apparently referring to reports that he had left the venue in a huff after being snubbed by Ramdev for making personal attacks against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
and other political leaders. Kejriwal had abruptly left the Jantar Mantar venue of the joint fast in Delhi by Ramdev and Anna Hazare on June 3 but later clarified that he had moved out as he was unwell.

A Japanese airline has informed its passengers that flight attendants will not help them with their luggage, do not have to be polite and won't deal with customer complaints.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government filed a complaint against Japanese budget carrier 'Skymark Airlines' and the Consumer Affairs Agency requested that it remove the notices, which informed the passengers that the carrier would not accept complaints during flights. Instead, the passengers were told to direct their complaints to public consumer centres.

A day after the Congress appeared going soft on Ramdev, party General Secretary Digvijay Singh today hit out at the yoga guru asking him to first declare how much black money he possesses before launching a campaign to
bring back ill-gotten wealth stashed abroad.

"Everything of whatever I had said about Ramdev and Anna Hazare in past has come out to be true. There is a notice by Enforcement Directorate on tax evasion against Ramdev. He (Ramdev) himself is in the dock but keeps talking about bringing black money back. First he should declare how much black money he has," Singh told reporters here. 

Ridiculing BJP chief Nitin Gadkari for touching the feet of Ramdev a few days back when the latter went to meet him, the AICC leader said,"I was very happy to see Gadkari on the feet of Ramdev, who is facing an ED notice on tax evasion. So the BJP President is on Ramdev's feet."

More on that big story of the day -- the Madras HC verdict to try home minister P Chidambaram in the 2990 LS polls case.

Chidambaram today ruled out his resignation in the wake of court's decision in the election petition against him saying the verdict was not a setback for him but for his rival. He ridiculed the demand for his resignation by BJP President Nitin Gadkari and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha saying he was astonished by their "monumental ignorance". 

Reacting to the demands of the opponents, he said those who make the demand for his resignation "do not have criminal case, do not have charges and have not been questioned under Criminal Procedure Code". 

"I am astonished by the monumental ignorance displayed by certain political leaders. This is an election petition. There are 111 election petitions filed against members of 15th Lok Sabha," Chidambaram said.

On Tuesday, 26-year-old Aditya Magal nervously walked into the Nariman Point offices of billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. Most people who looked up from their terminals didn't glance a second time, possibly concluding that the boy-faced youngster must be an internship-seeker at Rare Enterprises. 

Read

He said that there were 111 such petitions pending in court against members of the Lok Sabha and the Election Commissionof India.

On Thursday, the Madras High Court refused to entirely strike off an election petition filed by AIADMK''s losing candidate R S Raja Kannappan.

After having lost the election by a narrow margin of over 3500 votes, Raja Kannapan filed the election petition leveling several allegations of malpractice against Chidambaram.

In his petition, Raja Kannappan claimed that Chidambaram had mobilized funds from various banks to spend on poll campaign.

It's raining in the distant suburbs of Mumbai.

Priyanka Chopra tweets: @priyankachopraThe smell of geeli mitti in the rains is intoxicating.. Mmmm.. In the mood for looooovvvveeee!!!

Law Minister Salman Khurshid ridiculed the BJP for demanding home minister P Chidambaram's resignation over the issue. "Should the Home Minister get a resignation printed because they demand it on a daily basis or should he give it
on the internet? BJP wakes up in the morning and says that the Home Minister should resign. "God knows how many times the Home Minister would have
resigned had he accepted whatever BJP said," he said on the sidelines of a conference in Delhi. 

Party General Secretary Digvijay Singh also backed the Home Minister on the issue. "What case he (Chidambaram) has lost? It's an election petition. He has not lost a case, which has anything to do with his working as the Home Minister," Singh said.

The interest in the monsoon an sometimes be obsessive and is a measure of the extent to which these rains rule the tempo of life in this country.

The editorial on the Hindu.

The high-profile toilets built by the Planning Commission at an estimated cost of Rs 35 lakh has caught the fancy of ministers who appear keen to use it. The issue of Rs 35 lakh toilet came before the start of the Cabinet meeting today as many ministers showed their keenness to have access to the swanky toilets. 

One senior cabinet minister asked for the smart card after seeing Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. "You are in a queue," the minister was told and the banter was followed with laughter.

In more bizarre news, Baba Ramdev and civil aviation minister Ajit Singh are addressing a joint press conference. Ramdev says he met the Rashtriya Lok Dal chief on the black money issue and says the movement is against black money and corruption and not against a political party. He adds that he has been meeting leaders across party lines on the issue -- Left and NDA leaders as well. Ramdev adds that he will also ask for meetings with the PM and Sonia Gandhi over the issue.

Ajit Singh says Ramdev has been speaking on the black money issue for a long time and the use of unaccounted wealth during polls is a threat to democracy.

Read: Nitin Gadkari touches Ramdev's feet

In tales of the bizarre: A two-year-old Brazilian boy, who was declared dead, sat up in his coffin and asked for water before laying back down again lifeless. Kelvin Santos stopped breathing during treatment for pneumonia at a hospital in Brazil.

The boy was declared dead at 7.40 pm and his body was handed over to his family in a plastic bag. The child's devastated family took him home where grieving relatives held a wake throughout the night as the boy's body laid in an open coffin.

But just an hour before his funeral was to take place on Saturday, the boy apparently sat up in his coffin and said asked his father for water.  "Daddy, can I have some water,' the child said.

"Everybody started to scream, we couldn't believe our eyes. Then we thought a miracle had taken place and our boy had come back to life,' the boy's father, Antonio Santos said.

"Then Kelvin just laid back down, the way he was. We couldn't wake him. He was dead again..' Santos rushed his son back to the hospital, where the doctors reexamined the boy and confirmed that he had no signs of life.

Amid consultations on deciding the UPA candidate for Presidential election, DMK leaders T R Baalu and M K Stalin today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi in Delhi. The DMK leaders met Sonia and is understood to have discussed the issue of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as the possible presidential candidate. 

Stalin told reporters after the meeting with the prime minister that whatever DMK chief M Karunanidhi had conveyed to Defence Minister A K Antony in a meeting some weeks ago in Chennai is the party's stand on the issue.

In the Russian Arctic lies buried an unfinished railway built by prisoners of Stalin's gulags. For decades no-one talked about it. But one woman is now telling the story of the thousands who suffered there - and there is talk of bringing back to life the abandoned railway itself.

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Our sources in Delhi tell us that Union Minister Jairam Ramesh had told the Prime Minister to constitute a Group of Ministers to tackle Left Wing Extremism (Maoists).  Dr Manmohan Singh as is typical, remained tightlipped. When Ramesh asked the PM yet again, Dr Singh replied that he would discuss the matter with other ministers.

Since then, two months have passed and Ramesh has now begun interviews to the media on the subject.

Rising populations are driving the Earth towards a catastrophic breakdown where species we depend on would die out, an international team of scientists
has claimed, blaming the crisis on over use of water, forests and land for agriculutre. 

Writing in the journal Nature, the team warned that the world is headed toward a tipping point marked by extinctions and unpredictable changes on a scale not seen since the glaciers retreated 12,000 years ago.

Providing the urban poor with toilets that work must become a priority for Indian policymakers. Read Kalpana Sharma's opinion piece on the Hindu.

A must-read for all MS Ahluwalia's detractors.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa today demanded the resignation of Home Minister P Chidambaram or his removal in the wake of the Madras High
Court rejecting his plea over an election petition and said his continuation would be a "blot on democracy". 

Chidambaram facing the charge of poll irregularities should resign forthwith and if he failed to do so, the Prime Minister should drop him from the Cabinet, she said. Referring to the court observation that Chidambaram should face the case, Jayalalithaa said in this context, "Chidambaram remaining as Home Minister will be a blot on Indian democracy".

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told troops in Afghanistan today that the decade-long war was at "a turning point", as Kabul reacted with fury to a NATO air strike that killed up to 18 civilians. Panetta arrived in the Afghan capital on his second visit in less than three months as President Hamid Karzai branded yesterday's air strike on a home in Logar province "unacceptable" and cut short a visit to China. 

The United States, which leads 130,000 NATO troops fighting a Taliban insurgency, is planning to withdraw the bulk of combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and hand responsibility for security to the Afghans. Panetta noted a recent "uptick" in violence and said a double suicide attack yesterday outside the largest NATO base in the south that killed 23 people was "much more organised than we've seen before". 

But the US defence chief sought to reassure soldiers that their sacrifices had not been in vain and Afghans that NATO's drawdown did not mean they would be abandoned. The post-2014 role, the size of which is yet to be determined, would include fighting "terrorism" and training and advising, he said. "We've lost a lot people in battle... We've got to make damn sure they didn't die in vain."

The attack on the head of the Planning Commission is blatantly unfair and perhaps part of a coordinated campaign against an economic reformer.

Read

Montek Singh Ahluwalia and the Planning Commission came under fire yesterday for the RTI revelation that Rs 35 lakh had been spent on toilets in the office.

More than 9 million students sat China's notoriously tough college entrance exams today, with "high-flyer" rooms, nannies and even intravenous drips among the tools being employed for success. 

With just 6.85 million university spots on offer this year, competition for the top institutions is intense, and attempts to cheat are rife -- 1,500 people have been arrested on suspicion of selling transmitters and hard-to-detect ear pieces. 

Parents and students this year are also resorting to some outlandish but legal methods to ensure nothing goes  wrong in the make-or-break two-day exam. Students have reportedly been given pre-exam injections and intravenous drips designed to boost energy  levels, while girls have resorted to hormone injections and birth control pills to delay menstruation.

Hours after the Madras High Court ruled that Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has to face trial in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections case, the BJP demanded that the Congress government immediately sack him for the alleged malpractices. 

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi BJP president Nitin Gadkari said, "After the court's ruling it is clear that he is guilty of wrongdoing and therefore be sacked as Union Minister from UPA government."

Gadkari asked, "I want to ask why no action is being taken against P Chidambaram. Why Congress leadership is mum on the issue? Why is he not being expelled from the Union Cabinet? It seems that the Congress leadership is trying to protect him by keeping silent on the charges of corruption and alleged wrongdoings leveled against him. I want to make an appeal to PM Manmohan Singh to sack him as Union Minister in view of the court order,' he stated. 

AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa has also asked the PM to sack the home minister.

Sydney Wignall had in the mid-fifties reported to Indian authorities on the roads being built by the Chinese along the border. He was rebuffed. Sydney Wignall is dead. He died on April 4 in the UK. But who is Sydney Wignall? Very few have ever heard of him in India.

Read Claude Arpi's story for the Pioneer.

After his visit to India,  Leon E. Panetta, the United States defense secretary, arrived in Afghanistan today, a day after the deadliest militant attacks against civilians this year, news agencies reported.

Read

Here's what happened at the meeting between defence minister AK Antony and US defence secretary Leon Panetta at the talks held yesterday in Delhi.

Read

Just in: The Bombay High Court has granted bail to Adarsh scam accused, former BMC commissioner Jairaj Phatak and former state chief information commissioner Ramanand Tiwari. The bail was granted since the CBI has not filed the chargesheet even 60 days after their arrest.  

Earlier on May 29, the sessions court granted bail to seven accused - IAS officer Pradeep Vyas, former deputy secretary in urban development department P V Deshmukh, Brigadier (retd) M M Wanchoo, retired Defence Estates Officer R C Thakur, Major General (Retd) A R Kumar, Major Gen (Retd) T K Kaul and former MLC Kanhaiyyalal Gidwani - after they moved their bail in the sessions court on the same ground.

Apparently, the TMC, which had earlier objected to the Pension Bill saying it was anti-people was silent when the bill was discussed. The Bill was deferred today because of a lack of consensus.

The Bill, which has been stalled for years as political parties squabble over its provisions, was expected to be discussed by the Cabinet today, but it did not take it up. Sources say, with the Trinamool Congress is still dead opposed to it, the government decided not to bring out an issue that would expose fissures in its ranks just ahead of the crucial Presidential elections to be held next month.  

An early morning fire at the Finance Ministrys North Block office today destroyed key documents and gutted furniture. The fire broke out around 5:45 am in room numbers 14 and 15. Six fire tenders were rushed to the spot and the fire was doused. "All records present in the two rooms which caught fire, in the cupboards and otherwise, have been destroyed," a fire official said. The cause of fire is yet to be ascertained.

Had this happened at the Writers' Building in Kolkata, you know who Mamata Banerjee would have blamed.

The Cabinet has deferred the crucial Pension Bill in view of differences. It was to allow 26 per cent FDI in pension.

Read: Why the pension bill has been opposed. On the Sunday Guardian.

If you're not close to Hollywood star John Travolta you probably don't know this.

The Saturday Night Fever star reportedly had a six-year fling with his personal pilot, which was a completely open secret known to people close to the actor.  

The actor's former personal secretary Joan Edwards and a boyfriend of the pilot make the claims. "I did everything for him, including taking care of his personal and professional schedules. Of course I knew he was gay. It never bothered me."

Pilot Doug Gotterba, who now runs a charter plane service in California, would only confirm that he worked for Travolta for six years in the 1980s. "That's how I met Doug. We both worked for John at the same time. Doug is a wonderful guy and we are still good friends. He told me that John was gay and they had a sexual relationship,' Edwards said.  

"Doug told me right at the beginning of our relationship that he'd had a homosexual relationship with John Travolta in the 1980s. Doug said John was constantly grabbing at his genital area, but he put up with John's sexual advances because working for him was 'lucrative'," Edwards said.

Travolta's personal flyboy eventually turned away from the actor, grossed out by his weight and body odour.  

DMK leaders T R Baalu and M K Stalin today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and are believed to have discussed the issue of selection of a candidate for the presidential election. The meeting lasted for around 5 to 7 minutes and was described by the DMK leaders as a courtesy call. 

Talking to reporters after his meeting with the Prime Minister, Stalin said, "Whatever Karunanidhi had conveyed to Defence Minister A K Antony is the party's stand on the selection of UPA's Presidential candidate". 

On May 5, Karunanidhi said he had no objection if Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was chosen as UPA's Presidential candidate. Baalu and Stalin would also be meeting Congress President Sonia Gandhi later in the day apparently to discuss the issue of selecting a presidential candidate.

Following the verdict, Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy had demanded Chidambaram's resignation. Kannappan had also sought a recount of votes polled in the constituency, particularly in the Alangudi Assembly segment.

Chidambaram's contention was that the petition filed by Kannappan had certain defects and it should not be entertained by the court.

The case shot into national prominence when Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa wrote a letter to the chief election commissioner asking him to appoint Data Entry Operators of integrity and verify their credentials before assigning them to counting of votes for the elections held to the state assembly on April 13.

Chidambaram was declared elected by a margin of 3354 votes. He polled 3,34, 348 votes while Kannappan came a close second by polling 3,30,994 votes.

Another case where the ruling is just out.

The Madurai bench of Madras High Court today dismissed Home Minister P Chidambaram's strike off petition against High Court's order of August 2011. Chidambaram had filed a petition that sought the dismissal of an election petition challenging his election to the Lok Sabha from Sivaganga constituency in the 2009 general elections. The petition was filed by RS Raja Kannappan, the AIADMK candidate who lost by a margin of 3,354 votes.

The Madras High Court on August 4 last year had rejected his plea to dismiss Kanappan's petition. Chidambaram, who is already under Opposition scanner over his alleged involvement in the 2G scam,  will now have to face the trial in the election case.

Another must-read on the Aarushi-Hemraj case from February 2011. Tehelaka rebuts the grounds on which the court has summoned them. Read

Avinash Kumar, the Talwars' counsel says Nupur can file a fresh bail plea. The Talwars are facing murder charges, destruction of evidence and misleading the probe, all very serious charges.  

The Supreme Court has also said the trial will go on in the Ghaziabad court and in effect this means, that the Talwars's have lost their last right to recourse. The witnesses will be summoned tomorrow.

Nupur Talwar has been in judicial custody in Ghaziabad's Dasna Jail since April 30 this year while her husband Rajesh Talwar is out on bail.  She had also sought re-investigation on the ground that the evidence collected by the CBI was replete with discrepancies. 

The court had concluded hearing on the review petition on May 16. "Please order re-investigation as there are glaring discrepancies in the evidence. We do not want a clean chit. But for someone else's criminal act we should not face trial in the murder case," Nupur's counsel had told the bench.   

13-year-old Aarushi was found killed in her bedroom in May 2008. The initial suspect was Hemraj, who was missing. But hours later, his body was found on the Talwars' terrace.The CBI has said in the trial court that it has circumstantial evidence against the Talwars.

The Supreme Court has dismissed the review petition of Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, asking for the trial to be quashed against them. The SC says they find no merit to review the case.  

Nupur Talwar had filed a petition, asking the court to quash the case against her and her husband Rajesh Talwar in the trial court, which has framed charges against them for murdering their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj in May 2008.

The Talwars, who are both dentists, are accused of murder and destruction of evidence, and the case for their trial in the twin murder case is pending at a Ghaziabad sessions court. Nupur Talwar had appealed to the Supreme Court to cancel their trial.

The bench of Justice AK Patnaik and Justice JS Khehar had on May 16 reserved the order after hearing the contentions of Mrs Talwar and the CBI which had strongly opposed her plea.

Extending gains for the fourth straight session, the BSE benchmark Sensex today shot up by over 165 points in early trade on continued buying by funds
and retailers, driven by the government's bid to fast track the infrastructure projects and hopes of a rate cut by RBI. In addition, a firming trend in other Asian markets following overnight gains on the US markets, also bolstered
the trading sentiment here. 

The 30-share index rose further by 165.24 points, or 1 per cent, to 16,619.54 in early trade. Yesterday, it had recorded a hefty rise of 433.66 points, the highest single-day gain this year.