Hit by a demand slump in the residential sector, India is likely to witness around 25 per cent decline in land deals to around Rs 15,000 crore, realty consultant Cushman & Wakefield today said. The firm also said most of the land purchases would be done by regional smaller players instead of big developers.

"The market sentiment is very negative. This year we may see land deals worth Rs 15,000 crore happening across various locations in the country," Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) Executive Managing Director (South Asia) Sanjay Dutt told PTI on the sidelines of CII realty summit here. According to C&W, India had seen land deals worth Rs 20,000 crore in 2011, he added.

And while on monsters, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal acquitted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic today of one of the two genocide charges he faces at the halfway stage of his long-running trial. Karadzic was also called the Butcher of Bosnia.

Judges said prosecutors did not present enough evidence to support the genocide count covering mass killings, expulsions and persecution by Serb forces of Muslims and Croats from Bosnian towns early in the country's 1992-95 war. 

Presiding Judge Oh-Gon Kwon said there was not enough evidence to "be capable of supporting a conviction of genocide in the municipalities." While the dismissal of the genocide charge was a setback for prosecutors, judges upheld 10 more charges, including a genocide count covering Karadzic's alleged involvement in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men.

Rising temperatures coupled with high humidity levels made people swelter across North India which remained under the grip of a severe heat wave. The maximum temperature in capital Delhi was recorded at 41.6 degrees celsius, five degrees above normal and the minimum was 30.4 degrees celsius, two notches above normal.

However, the MeT department says that the monsoon is expected to hit north India by the first week of July.

In Rajasthan, Churu continued to remain the hottest place recording a maximum temperature of 44.1 degrees celsius followed by SriGanganagar at 42.8 degrees. Bikaner, Barmer, Jaipur and Jaisalmer recorded maximum temperatures of 40.5, 40, 39.8 and 39.5 degrees respectively, while other places recorded day temperatures between 37.4 degrees celsius and 39.3 degrees. The weather would be mainly dry in parts of the state during the next 48 hours.

Striking Air India pilots got backing from a global pilots' body which extended them support and sought intervention of Director General of Civil Aviation
(DGCA) to end the deadlock that entered the 52nd day today. 

In a letter to DGCA chief E K Bharat Bhushan, International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Association (IFALPA) said, "It is our view that DGCA, as the responsible regulator, is in a unique position and can make a very positive contribution towards ending this dispute. 

"We would ask you to use your good offices to bring both sides back to the negotiating table so that the differing views can be resolved," IFALPA President Capt Don Wykoff said in the letter. IFALPA claims to represent over 100,000 professional pilots in more than 90 countries worldwide.

Pranab Mukherjee will kick off his presidential campaign from Tamil Nadu on Saturday when he meets long-time friend and DMK chief M Karunanidhi besides interacting with alliance parties' MPs and MLAs.

TNCC president B S Gnanadesikan said Mukherjee, who is scheduled reach here around 4 pm on Saturday, will call on Karunanidhi at the latter's residence before proceeding to a city hotel to meet the elected members of alliance parties. 

He will later meet Congress workers from the state and Puducherry at the TNCC headquarters, Gnanadesikan said in a statement here. All arrangements were in place to accord a grand reception for the former Union Finance Minister, he said.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today justified the imposition of curfew-like restrictions in parts of Srinagar city, in the aftermath of destruction of a revered shrine on Monday, blaming the incidents of stone-pelting for the harsh measures.

"Why don't you blame the stone pelters? If I was (were) so keen to 'curfew you', I'd have done it without the stone throwing", Omar wrote on the micro-blogging site twitter.com.  Omar was responding to criticism over the curfew-like restrictions imposed in six police station areas of the old city as a preventive measure following violent clashes on Monday that left over 50 persons injured. The clashes broke out after the 200-year-old Dastageer Sahib Shrine at Khanyar was gutted in a fire incident. 

Responding to a "taunt" that "in Kashmir CM stands for Curfew Minister", the Chief Minister responded, "Enjoy yourselves. You have to find something to amuse yourselves, so have fun".

Monsoon havoc in Arunachal Pradesh as well.

Chief Minister Nabam Tuki today demanded that a central team be deputed to the state to assess the damage caused by floods. The flood, caused by incessant rain, damaged roads and property in several districts, they said adding that Tirap district was the worst hit. Meanwhile, IAF swimmers today continued to rescue the marooned from many places.

As the flood situation in Assam deteriorated, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today assured all help to the state government and directed the Defence Ministry to provide army assistance in rescue and relief. Singh called up states's Health Minister Hemanta Biswa Sarma to enquire about the condition in the state, a PMO statement said. 

The Prime Minister assured the Assam government of all help to deal with the flood situation there, it said.The statement said Singh also spoke to Defence Minister A K Antony "urging full army assistance for the rescue and relief operations in the affected areas".The situation deteriorated in the state today as 23 of the 27 districts came in the grip of floods in which 26 people have died.

In a first, the Central Vigilance Commission has been chosen to lead a global task force to promote international cooperation in enforcement and prevention of corruption offences. 

The objectives of the task force is to facilitate exchange of information about anti-corruption organisations, systems, procedures and practices. It will also promote international cooperation in enforcement and prevention, define best practices and develop benchmarks and new approaches to tackle corruption in its various manifestations and assist in capacity building of anti-corruption authorities (ACAs), officials said.

Countess Mountbatten lost her 14-year-old son Nicholas Knatchbull as well as her father and mother-in-law in the IRA bomb that claimed four lives on Aug 27, 1979. But she said the Queen had her full support for meeting Mr McGuinness, a former IRA commander who was allegedly part of the terrorist group at the time of Lord Mountbatten's murder.

Read

Shobhaa De @DeShobhaa Why not Sangma?What's wrong with playing the tribal card? About time the North East got attention and respect.Sangma over Pranab any day.  

Pritish Nandy @PritishNandy @DeShobhaa He is a nice guy but a bit high all the time. May not be an ideal candidate in that sense.

Health updates:  

Alzheimer's is the second most feared disease after cancer, but a mental health specialist has said that it shouldn't be regarded as a tragedy, but as a normal part of the ageing process in people aged 85 and over. Just as other parts of the body degenerate - eyes, bones, heart and skin - our brain is also likely to degenerate as we enter advanced age.  

David Spektor, a specialist in aged persons' mental health, will address the international conference on dementia in Sydney and tell that labelling people in their 80s and 90s with Alzheimer's disease is unfair and may serve no productive purpose.  

On the WSJ: In 2004, Singapore Airlines proudly launched its inaugural 19-hour nonstop flight from Singapore to Newark. Now, Air India, the embattled state-owned carrier, seems to be pushing back against the trend, arguing Indian passengers like stopovers. Read

Scroll down (15:49 pm) for the latest on the AI strike.

For the loved ones of the 164 people who died in the 26/11 attacks, the arrest of Zabiuddin Ansari marks a small step forward in the slow march of justice. Mr. Ansari is alleged by India's intelligence services to have been one of six men who guided the actions of a control team in Karachi.

Read the editorial on the Hindu on 26/11 plotter Abu Jundal

Almost bumped off newspapers, striking Air India pilots (yes, they are still on strike) have found their way back into newsrooms. The indefinite hunger strike of the Air India pilots entered its fifth day today.

"Our resolve has not weakened one bit. Our bodies will repair, will come back and we will join again," Ajay Goyat, a protesting pilot, said. Goyat said that the pilots' association should be consulted over the recommendations of the Dharmadhikari report. 

"We are willing to talk on all of our demands, as the minister claims that the Dharamadhikari report will solve all these issues, and even the report itself says all the unions will be considered. This is not a legal body; this is a committee which has come out with recommendations and these recommendations have to be discussed with the unions before a comprehensive policy is formulated by the management," Goyat added.

What the Dharmadhikari Report said.

At first, Munni Khatoon appears reticent to speak, downcast. But, after several minutes, when the conversation changes to her new life, her new job, and how her two children are faring in their new home, her face brightens. 

The full story on the Wall Street Journal.

Hollywood star Tom Hanks has penned a moving tribute to Nora Ephron, saying he became a fan of the late screenwriter and director after his wife Rita Wilson dragged him to a screening of her movie "This Is My Life". The filmmaker died earlier this week after losing her secret battle with acute myeloid leukemia, and Hanks, who starred in Ephron's films "Sleepless in Seattle" and "You've Got Mail", was among the celebrities who offered up condolences, reported Digital Spy online. 

He has now written a lengthy tribute piece for Time magazine saying he was only made aware of Ephron's talents after Wilson took him to a screening in 1992. "As wives are wont to do, mine announced one evening in 1992 that we were going to a movie.

The movie was 'This Is MyLife', the writer and first-time director was Nora Ephron, and within the hour, there we were in the cinema watching the opening credits of a middle-aged-chick flick," Hanks said. "Knowing and loving Nora meant her world - or herneighborhood - became yours. She gave you books to read and took you to cafes you'd never heard of that became legends," he added.

Also read: The Sally to my Harry

PA Sangma has filed his nomination papers for the Presidential polls at exactly 2.31 pm. Sangma today claimed tribal leaders cutting across party lines are unitedly behind him and took potshots at Congress for not standing by his candidature for the President's post despite enjoying the support of tribals for decades. 

"I only want to express that tribals in India have all along stood by Congress party. We had expected that Congress party would welcome and consider a tribal as its candidate," Sangma said, maintaining that Congress President Sonia Gandhi did not even give him an appointment for which he waited for three days.

"Many political parties have positively responded to our (Tribal Forum of India) request. But the largest political party with whom tribals have stood all along--the Indian National Congress -- did not come out to support the cause oftribals. They will know the effect of this action," he said. 

Meanwhile, two more Amarnath pilgrims died due to cardiac arrest even as the number of pilgrims who paid obeisance at the 3,880 metre high holy cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas crossed 60,000. 

The body of an unidentified 55-year-old pilgrim was recovered from Pissu top along the traditional Pahalgam-cave route in Anantnag district this morning. Meanwhile, Subash Chand (40), a resident of Punjab, breathed his last at the Baltal base camp in Ganderbal district late yesterday. With this, the death toll in the Amarnath pilgrimage has risen to eight. So far 61,200 pilgrims have visited the cave shrine and offered their prayers, the spokesman said.

Update on the Indian released from a Pak jail after 31 years.

During his three decades in Pakistani prison, Surjeet Singh lost a son while his other children got married. His family as also people from his village in Ferozepur welcomed him with garlands and sweet when he reached Indian soil at 1135 hours. 

An excited Kulwinder Singh, Surjeet's son, said he was just three-years-old when his father left and he didn't remember his exact face. "Our wait has ended...I will get to see him...," Kulwinder said. Asked if he had ever thought of meeting him, he said, "No, I never thought of this. I am very happy. We have planned many celebrations." 

On how he came to know about the news on Pakistani authorities deciding to release him, Kulwinder said, "We heard about Sarabjit Singh. Then later it was known that it was Surjeet Singh and not Sarabjit...Our dreams have come true." 

According to Surjeet's family, his whereabouts were not known till November 2004 when Gurjit Singh of Mansurwal village in Zira, who was arrested along with Surjeet on espionage charges, was released from jail. He contacted Surjeet's family and handed over a letter written from him, saying that he was serving a life term that would end on October 27, 2010.

External Affairs Minister S M Krishna today welcomed the release of Indian prisoner Surjeet Singh and asked Pakistan to "seriously ponder and consider"setting free Sarabjit Singh, who is in a Lahore jail on death row. 

"I am happy that Surjeet Singh is being released and I hope that Pakistan will also seriously ponder and consider and release Sarabjit Singh also," he told reporters on a sidelines of a function. 

Noting that India has consistently urged the Pakistan government, on several occasions, to take a "sympathetic and humanitarian view" in the case of Sarabjit, Krishna, in a statement later, said, "I welcome this decision (on Surjeet) and further renew our request to the President of Pakistan to release Sarabjit who has been in custody for well over two decades and is serving a death sentence."

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Zaka Ashraf has expressed disappointment over the unwillingness of international teams to tour Pakistan due to security concerns.

"No one is interested in tours. All the boards point towards the lack of security in Pakistan," The Express Tribune quoted Ashraf, as saying. Ashraf, who was in Kuala Lumpur for the International Cricket Council (ICC) annual conference, had two main aims- to convince boards about touring Pakistan and talks with the Indian board about the revival of a bilateral series.

However, his effort received a major blow when he was given the cold shoulder by the other boards that showed no interest in touring the country in the near future. Pakistan have not hosted a Test nation since 2009 after the attack on the Sri Lanka team bus and while the board came close to breaking the barren run in April when Bangladesh agreed to play a two-match series, intervention by a Dhaka court led to its cancellation.

Internationally renowned author Dominique Lapierre is critically ill. According to his friend in Kolkata, Jesuit Father Gaston Roberge, Lapierre fell down at his home in France and has been in a coma for several days now, reports the Hindustan Times.

Father Roberge said the Padma Bhushan recipient is on ventilator and other artificial life support systems. The doctors,  Father Roberge added, fear that Lapierre's illness, which have affected his brain, could be terminal.

If you're heading to South Mumbai from Bandra, beware. Some 50,000 workers are blocking the roads, so virtually no south-bound traffic is being allowed beyond Bandra.  The protest is being staged by some mill workers' organisations who threatened to interrupt proceedings during the MHADA lottery near Rangsharda Auditorium in Bandra.

Out of the nine mill workers' organisations, three organisations have said that they support the lottery process and don't have any objection against MHADA conducting the lottery.

However, some of the members from the remaining organisations are opposing the lottery, asking how MHADA could conduct a lottery without fixing the criteria of who is an eligible mill worker to win a house in the lottery.

Assam's flood scene worsened with 15 more people being washed away, as many feared drowned and thousands rendered homeless across the state, where world's biggest inhabited river island Majuli is facing threat of complete submergence.

Soon after completing the process of filing his nomination papers, Pranab Mukherjee thanked parties like SP, BSP, JD(U), CPI-M and Shiv Sena for reposing faith in him.

"I am grateful to them as they have reposed faith in me to occupy the office which was occupied in the past by great stalwarts of this country. "I only wish at this time that let me have the blessings of God and cooperation of all at this juncture," he told reporters at the Parliament House. 

Four sets of nomination papers, signed by as many as 480 MPs and MLAs, including Union Ministers, Chief Ministers, Congress Legislature Party leaders and PCC chiefs were submitted by Mukherjee.

Sachin Kalbag @SachinKalbag Mumbai traffic update: Bandra SV Road and Reclamation are particularly bad because of the MHADA flats lottery event scheduled for today.  

Meanwhile, after playing hide and seek for over two weeks, monsoon finally made its presence felt in Mumbai on Thursday morning and with it the accompanying ills of traffic snarls, delayed local train services and chaos. While trains on the Western Railway were running on time, services on Central Railway were late by an hour.

The family of Sarabjit Singh today staged a protest here demanding the immediate release of the death row prisoner in Pakistan, accusing the neighbouring country of playing a "cruel joke" on them. 

Singh's sister Dalbir Kaur, who is fighting for the release of Singh who is languishing in Pakistan jail for the past over 20 years, said they cannot express in words the pain they have suffered. 

Hours after reports emerged on Tuesday that Pakistan was to free Sarabjit, Presidential spokesman Faratullah Babar had said it was not Sarabjit but another Indian prisoner Surjeet Singh, who has been jailed for three decades. 

"The pain we have suffered I cannot express. I don't think this should have happened. After the cruel joke they have played, isn't it necessary for Pakistan to improve its image to release Sarabjit immediately," Kaur told reporters.

She said she is appealing to Pakistan government to release Sarabjit for the sake of humanity. Sarabjit (49) was convicted and sentenced to death
for alleged involvement in a string of bomb attacks that killed 14 people in Punjab in 1990.

In other news, former railway minsiter Dinesh Trivedi makes news. Removed unceremoniously as Railway Minister at the behest of Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, party MP Dinesh Trivedi today said that most of thepolitical parties in India, particularly the regional ones, have become "feudal" where decisions are taken at the whims and fancies of their leaders.

"Sycophancy or 'chamchagiri' is not serving any leader," Trivedi, who is here as part of a Parliamentary delegation, told PTI. "... slowly, slowly for the last few years a very dangerous trend has come in where most of the political parties have become feudal. There is no internal democracies at all, issues are not debated, issues are not discussed. 

"Whatever the head of the party '" I am not talking about one political party, I am speaking in general -- that is carried on, there is never a debate about it," he said. In such a situation, he argued party members are scared that if they say something against the leader or the decision taken by the chief, they would not get the election ticket next time.

Addressing the media at the Wagah border Surjeet Singh says he was treated well in the Pakistan jail and fellow prisoner Sarabjeet Singh is all fine. He says Sarabjeet should also be released and he met him several times at Lahore's Kot Lakhpat prisone where they were both jailed.

The Indian prisoner languishing in Pakistan jail for 31 years, Surjeet Singh, who was released yesterday, has entered India through the Wagah border.  
Singh, who was released from Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail after 31 years on Thursday, reached the Wagah border on the Indian side on his way back home.

He said he was looking forward to meeting his family. "During my imprisonment I often remembered my family and children. Today I am very happy. I will go to the Golden Temple to pray and hug my children," he said.

That's 31 years of catching-up he has to do in an India that has changed dramatically.  

Also read: The terrible mix-up with Sarabjeet Singh.

Seated next to Pranab Mukherjee as he signed his nomination papers were Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi, reports NDTV.

UPA allies, friends like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav and senior Congressmen made up the rest of the party.  

There are also 480 important signatures on his four sets of nomination papers, which are now being scrutinised by the returning officer. He is also being supported by parties like the BSP and calculations at present give him a comfortable advantage with about 56 per cent votes in the electoral college. Missing today is key UPA ally Mamata Banerjee.

In an effort to weed out illegal mining activity from the state, Goa government has told the High Court that they are reviewing all files cleared by the state mines and geology department spanning over a decade. 

Mines and Geology department director Prasanna Acharya, in an affidavit filed before Bombay High Court bench at Goa, has said he has already initiated steps to review all the files of the department which were processed during last 10 years, as per an assurance given in the budget speech by the state Chief Minister. 

Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had assured to nail the illegal mining activity in the state by cleansing the department and also by reviewing all the files cleared during last ten years. 

The Parrikar government has already suspended the then director of mines, Arvind Lolienkar, holding him responsible for the irregularities in the mining department. The directorate of mines and geology has filed an affidavit, responding to the writ petition filed by NGOGoa Foundation, against the illegalities in the ore mining sector of Goa.

Egypt's ailing former strongman Hosni Mubarak is slipping in and out of a coma and his morale has plunged after news of Mohamed Morsi's victory in the presidential polls, officials told AFP on Wednesday

Read the full story on France 24

Zardari gets Sept 5 deadline to dissociate from politics

Adarsh scam: Deshmukh blames Ashok Chavan again

'Sarabjit's possible release is yet to be discussed'

PIX: Revered relics of gutted Srinagar shrine displayed

Malik CATEGORICALLY denies PC's 26/11 remarks

Stage set for Pranab vs Sangma showdown

Click here for yesterday's news updates!