A powerful, magnitude-7.6 earthquake shook Coasta Rica and a wide swath of Central America on Wednesday, collapsing some houses, blocking highways and causing panic, but officials said there were no reports of deaths.

 

The USGS said the 8:42 a.m. quake struck about 38 miles from the town of Liberia. It was centered about 25 miles below the surface. The magnitude initially was estimated at 7.9.

 

Read the full story on USA Today!

Just in: 23 Indian sailors on board an oil tanker hijacked by pirates off the shores of Nigeria, have been released

Pirates hijack ship with 22 Indian sailors. Abu Dhabi Star was hijacked off the Nigerian coast.  

More details are awaited.    

Two cases were filed against Maharashtra Navanirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray and his cousin Uddhav Thackeray in Bhagalpur and Muzaffarpur today for their hate speech against Bihari migrants.

James Quadrez, a social activist filed a case against the two in the court of Bhagalpur district chief judicial magistrate S P Malviya under various provisions of the IPC.

He alleged that 'Bihari bashing' by the two Maharashtra leaders in a series of hate speech had hurt the sentiments of the people of the state and posed a threat to the unity and integrity of the country.

An irate mob of thousands of people, protesting against planned demolition of a slum on the land belonging to Mafatlal Engineering company, disrupted the suburban train services on Thane-Mumbai section of Central Railway for at leat two hours this morning.

Protesters descended on the tracks at Kalwa, near here, led by NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad around 7 in the morning. Shiv Sena MLAs Eknath Shinde and Pratap Sarnaik too joined in the protest later. Police could clear the tracks only after over two hours.

barkha dutt '@BDUTT Why in the world should @simondenyer or Washington Post apologise to anyone? What happened to us being worlds largest democracy!

Deyner is the Washington Post Bureau Chief for India. Congress spokesperson and the good news is that he has not apologised and after the government seems to have calmed down and is no more insistent on an apology. He said that he wrote a one-sided article since the PM refused an interview.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari on CNN IBN says it is wrong to call the PM silent. He clarifies that the PMO has said the Dr Singh will not speak when the Parliament is in session.

Bodies burnt beyond recognition and scores of injured lying all round presented a gory picture of a battleground at a nearby fireworks unit where a massive fire broke out in which 52 people perished.

Intermittent explosions were heard and flames threatened to engulf nearby buildings as rescuers fought thick plumes of smoke to reach those trapped. Shocked people huddled in groups and some carried those with severe burns to ambulances, which were rushed to the spot soon after the incident at Omshakti Fireworks.

A thick pall of smoke engulfed the area and was visible from a distance of over 1.5 km. A fire brigade official said 20 of the 40 rooms in the factory spread across 10 acres had been completely gutted and the debris was spread over a two kilometre radius.

He said they were unable to collect any data about the unit or workers as the people running it had fled the spot. Though it was not clear how the fire had broken out, it quickly spread to other rooms, he said, adding that rescue operations were hampered as there was no proper road connectivity.

In an ironic twist to the tragedy, some people who tried saving those in the factory were also trapped in the thick smoke.

Sports minister Ajay Maken announces that silver medalist Girisha Hosanagara Nagarajegowda has been offered a job as a coach at the Sports Authority of India at an officer level!

Girisha Hosanagara Nagarajegowda has dedicated his silver medal winning feat at the London Paralympic to the disabled community in the country and asserted that their hard work and sacrifice was no less than the medal winners at the Olympics.

Girisha, who has an impairment in his left leg, sailed over a height of 1.74m in the Men's High Jump F42 event in London finishing second. "I am very happy that finally my hard work earned result. It is a pity that in India every sportsperson gets help but as fas as para athletes are concerned, only government takes care of us. No one takes us seriously but our hard work is no less then any Olympic medallists," Girisha said from London.

Our Delhi sources say that President Pranab Mukherjee will attend a lunch hosted by the Governor of Tamil Nadu in Chennai and attend the valedictory function of the sesquicentennial celebrations of the Madras High Court.

He will also speak at a function organised by the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry on the same day. 

In the evening, the President will leave for Tirupathi and will inaugurate the Nandakam Complex, a rest house for pilgrims. 

The death toll in the fireworks accident at Sivakasi has gone up to 52. At least 50 were injured today in the devastating blaze that raged through a fireworks factory on the outskirts of Sivakasi, the country's cracker manufacturing hub.

The toll might go up as several persons were still feared trapped under the debris, police and fire brigade said, as the fire was doused by the evening amid intermittent explosions.

Officials said the dead bodies had been accounted for from hospitals at Sattur (16), Virudhunagar (13), Sivakasi (21). Two others died on way to a hospital in Madurai. Almost all those killed were workers, with some persons, who rushed inside the factory complex to try and rescue those trapped inside, also falling victim to the blaze, they said.

The tragedy struck when workers were engaged in mixing chemicals for fancy fireworks. The blaze gutted all 48 sheds located in the premises of Omshakthi fireworks factory, police and fire officials said.

They said the entire production had been stored in a godown against official advice. The sheds were reduced to ashes in the sprawling complex of the company and the debris had to be cleared to get a clear picture of the actual number of casualties, an official said.

Fire officials said that due to a variety of chemicals used in pyrotechnics crackers, there was thick and suffocating smoke, making their task difficult to enter the factory. The smoke could be seen 1.5 km away from the spot.

"These are times ahead of Deepavali. So activities go on at breakneck speed in the cracker units," Virudhunagar District Superintendent of Police Najmul Hoda said.

A factory official said 300 persons were at work at the unit at the time of the incident. Thousands of people thronged the area near the factory to inquire about the fate of their relatives working in the unit. In October 2009, 32 people, most of them Deepavali shoppers, were killed at a cracker godown fire in Pallipattu in Tiruvallur district.

@GhoshAmitavMichelle Obama's speech generates 28,003 tweets per minute, twice as many as Romney's
Here's what she said: I love Obama more than I did 23 years ago: Michelle

Oscar Pistorius failed to defend his gold medal at the Paralympic Games after being beaten into second place by Alan Oliveira in Sunday''s 200m final, and Dr David James, a sports engineer at Sheffield Hallam University, believes the reason behind his shock loss his too much focus on the Olympics.  

Pistorius, whose brand is built on being the fastest man on no legs did not take kindly to his first ever Paralympic defeat over the distance, and faces a possible fine from the International Paralympic Committee for alleging that double amputee winner Oliveira's victory was unfairly aided by the length of his blades.

Spacecraft launched in 1977 to explore Jupiter and Saturn on the verge of entering new frontier in the Milky Way. Read

Moving to news of consequence: The third largest lender ICICI Bank today said it is working towards allowing its customers to make transactions through social networking site Facebook.

The Mumbai-based bank's chief technology officer Mukesh Kumar Jain said the bank has Facebook likes close to 8 lakh and claimed that ICICI is the only bank in the world which has an application to see bank statement, as well as put some servicing request on Facebook.

In the Washington Post comment that the PM cuts a tragic figure comes from historian Ramachandra Guha, who has been quoted in the piece: "More and more, he has become a tragic figure in our history,' said political historian Ramachandra Guha, describing a man fatally handicapped by his "timidity, complacency and intellectual dishonesty."

‏@rameshsrivats Now Washington Post also takes off on poor Manmohan Singh. Evil fellows. Going after a poor guy who can't say anything.

Indian news channels are citing unnamed sources in the Prime Minister's Office as saying that The Washington Post has 'apologised' for its piece on Manomohan Singh, headlined 'India's 'silent' prime minister becomes a tragic figure'.

But the writer of the article has denied that any such apology has been made. Simon Denyer, India bureau chief, The Washington Post, tweeted: 'Again, I made no apology for the article. After all, its mild compared to what is in Indian press all the time...!'

Denyer had earlier tweeted: 'Have realised where possible apology confusion came from. PMO wanted to post a reply in comments section but website was temporarily down...So I simply apologised for website issues. They were quickly fixed and I called PMO back to tell them comments were open for them to post.'

Samajwadi Party MP Naresh Agrawal, who had a scuffle with BSP MP Avatar Singh Karimpuri inside the Rajya Sabha, defended his action saying he was provoked by the Bahujan Samaj Party leader and denied the parliamentary right of expressing his opinion.

Agarwal said he was not trying to tear up the promotion quota bill, but was just protesting against it. "I have had 25 years in Parliament but I have never seen that an MP has been not allowed to express his opinion," said Agarwal.

"The BSP MPs were misbehaving with me. I didn''t try to tear the bill...we wanted that division of votes should be there," he added.

With age not on his side, Sachin Tendulkar has become vulnerable to full length deliveries but he is "not finished" as yet and is still good enough to score runs at the highest level, feels former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar. Tendulkar, 40, was bowled thrice in four innings in the just concluded India-New Zealand Test series, prompting many to announce his end as a quality batsman.

Manjrekar felt that Tendulkar still adds value to Indian batting line-up and he must be a part of the Indian side which will tour South Africa in November. "To me, the way Tendulkar got out in his three innings against New Zealand does not suggest by any stretch of the imagination that he is finished as an international batsman.

A factory official said 300 persons were at work at the unit at the time of the incident. In October 2009, 32 people, most of them Deepavali shoppers, were killed at a cracker godown fire in Pallipattu in Tiruvallur district.

Initial reports say the factory was stocked for Diwali. The fire broke out at 1 pm after an accident. The toll now stands at 30 killed, 70 injured and 100 trapped. Officials could not enter the factory premises as the fire had not been doused entirely and there was a likelihood of explosions, Virudhunagar District Superintendent of Police Najmal Huda said. Activities in cracker units go on at breakneck speed during this time in view of the festive season, he said.  

Om Sakthi fireworks is one of the biggest factories in Sivakasi. The fire has gutted almost the entire unit. Firefighters are moving cautiously fearing an explosion, though the fire is not raging any more. 

The toll in the Sivakasi firecracker factory has risen to 25 dead and 30 injured. As many as 300 are still feared trapped. 

The fire at the Sivakasi factory has been doused. The death toll so far stands at 10.

The same tensions coursing through the fishing dispute between India and Sri Lanka are now contributing to an ugly spectacle in Tamil Nadu as Indian protesters on Tuesday stoned buses carrying Sri Lankan pilgrims.

The Sri Lankan government issued a travel advisory and arranged for a special plane to transport pilgrims home. The attack followed earlier protests and prompted India's Ministry of External Affairs to offer reassurances that Sri Lankans are safe in India. Read

Sivakasi firecracker accident. At least 10 people are dead with between 20 and 30 injured when a fire broke out in the Om Sakhti firecracker factory in Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu. At least 300 people are feared to be trapped inside the factory. At least 10 fire tenders are at the spot, where the fire is still raging. Police fear that the toll could rise to 20. Ten bodies have been pulled out so far.  

Move over cricket commercialisation. If the UP government has its way, the revered Kumbh Mela in Allahabad would be telecast 24X7 only on one TV channel.And there is no guarantee of a highlights show on another channel later in the day.

Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is exploring the option of giving the telecast and advertisement rights of the Maha Kumbh Mela to a particular company, much to the dislike of religious groups. Read more

Indians applying for US visa can now look forward to a hassle-free process with the US Embassy today announcing a new visa processing system that simplifies fee payment and appointment schedules for the travel document. The new system that will come into effect from September 26 will allow applicants to pay the visa application fees through Electronic Fund Transfer or with their mobile phones and collect their documents from 33 document pick-up locations in the country.

He may have a problem with the full-length delivery but he's still valuable to India's Test side. Read

Ten people are feared killed in a fire at the Sivakasi firecracker factory in Tamil Nadu. Over 10 others suffer serious burns. Early reports say the fire has spread to the godown. 

Unlike celebrities like cricketers Kapil Dev and Mahendra Singh Dhoni and actor Mohan Lal, who joined the force as Honorary Lieutenant Colonels, Pilot will be joining TA as a regular officer and will get prescribed salary and incentives for the period of his service, the sources said.

Those volunteering for TA, which is under the Indian Army, receive military training for a certain period of time every year and can continue to remain gainfully employed in any profession.

The purpose of the organisation is to take care of critical infrastructure such as railways, oil and natural gas, hospitals and telecommunications during times of military emergency. At present, TA has a strength of approximately 40,000 personnel.

Congress leader and Union Minister Sachin Pilot will be commissioned into the Territorial Army (TA) as a regular officer here tomorrow by Army Chief General Bikram Singh.

Pilot (35), who recently cleared the written exam conducted by TA and the Service Selection Board interview at Allahabad, will be joining the force as a Lieutenant before proceeding for the training at the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun, sources said.

He will be accorded the rank by Gen Singh and TA's Additional Director General (ADG) Lieutenant General A K Siwach tomorrow at a ceremony here, they said.

Even as the Washington Post says it stands by its story calling the PM a 'tragic figure' the PMO says the PM is unaffected by it.

There's been an accident at the Sivakasi fireworks factory in Tamil Nadu. Details awaited.

Remember this? The Outlook magazine's witty and well done reaction to the Time magazine cover dubbing Manmohan Singh as an underachiever. 

Washington Post says there is NO question of an apology to PM Manmohan Singh over its report that says, "... the image of the scrupulously honorable, humble and intellectual technocrat has slowly given way to a completely different one: a dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government." Read the full WaPo report here. The Post also says that the PM's report on Coalgate will be published.

The Indian government today labelled the The Washington Post's "baseless" report on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as "yellow journalism".

Reacting to the daily report labelling Singh as a "tragic figure", Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said India would register a strong protest over it.

"We have our apprehension to a foreign daily publishing something baseless on our prime minister... This is what we call as yellow journalism," Soni said. Here's the India Today report.

Full text of the Constitution (117th Amendment) Bill, 2012 or Promotions Quota Bill. Up for discussion at 2 pm in the Rajya Sabha, unless Parliament is adjourned. Read

The Mamata Banerjee government is using Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan funds, meant for the upgrade of education infrastructure, for its Teachers' Day function at Netaji Indoor Stadium on Wednesday.

Even as the government desperately seeks a bailout from the Centre and complains about lack of funds stalling development initiatives , education department officials at Bikash Bhavan have released cheques of Rs 4,200 to each of the 115 government-aided schools to bring a total of 6,900 students to the venue in hired buses and provide them snacks.

The budget for the programme , pegged at Rs 45 lakh, is 15 times more than its previous edition, held at Rabindra Sadan in 2010, that was addressed by former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Read

In just over a week since its launch, Musalamander Koroniyo (What Muslims Should Do), a book in written in Bengali by a senior police officer, has attracted national attention and raised new questions about intolerance in West Bengal, where Mamata Banerjee is chief minister.

The police raided the College Street office of the book's Kolkata publisher, Mitra & Ghosh, on Friday, closing it for hours and sparking fresh allegationsof Ms. Banerjee's autocratic style of functioning. Read

Prime Minister holds consultations with Cabinet colleagues AK Antony and Sushilkumar Shinde after the BSP-SP scuffle in the Rajya Sabha.

SP MP  Naresh Agrawal says BSP MP Avatar Singh Karimpuri misbehaved with him in Parliament. If you've just joined us, a scuffle broke out in the Rajya Sabha today as soon as Deputy Chairman P J Kurien asked the government to move the Constitution (117th Amendment) Bill, 2012. SP, a party opposed to the bill, were on their feet and when Agarwal went towards the Well, BSP MP Karimpuri, grabbed him by his collar to prevent him from trooping into the Well. 

The State Bank of India has cut fixed deposit rates by up to 0.5 per cent.

While BSP, SP MPs came to blows in Parliament, the CPI-M hit out (figuratively speaking) at the UPA and BJP for the present stalemate in Parliament. The CPI-M has said both did not want the truth about 'coalgate' to come out. Despite rich potential, both in terms of wealth and human resources, the country was not making progress due to large-scale corruption, CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury said at a public meeting in Delhi last night. 

Meanwhile, SP leader Mulayam Singh has called the quota bill unconstitutional.  "If it is passed the bill will disturb seniority in jobs. It's a joke. The SP will continue to oppose the bill," said the former UP CM.

Mayawati also blamed the BJP and Congress over the ruckus over the quota bill. "The Congress failed to bring the bill into Parliament earlier and so they are responsible. In the earlier session the government did not bring the bill because they wanted to win  the Presidential and Vice Presidential polls. Had political self interests been kept aside the bill would have been passed," she said."I have said this before, and this shows that the BJP and its allies in the NDA are anti-Dalit and they don't want the backward communities to prosper," Mayawati added. 

Unless Parliament is adjourned again when it meets at 2 pm, on the agenda is the discussion on the SC/ST quota bill. Just as the bill was tabled in Parliament, SP's Naresh Agarwal and BSP's Avtar Singh came to blows in the Rajya Sabha. A new low for Parliament.

BSP chief Mayawati speaking on the SC/ST quota bill says she requested BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj to allow a debate and the passage of the bill, yesterday. She said they had agreed to it, but said coalgate would be discussed first and only then will they agree to bring up the quota bill. "This is deplorable. Not letting Parliament function is not acceptable. There are just three days (including today) for the bill to be passed and it would have been, but for the BJP," Mayawati said speaking to TV channels.

Coming back to the Parliament in a bit, but first -- Gujarat's poor performance on nutrition studies seems puzzling when you consider that the state is doing better than the national average on a range of other social indicators. Read

The discussion on the Quota Bill will take place at 2 pm. 

The SC/ST Quota Bill has been tabled in the Rajya Sabha, even as the BJP tries to keep the focus on coalgate. The BJP gets its way and the Rajya Sabha has been adjourned till 2pm.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh helped set his country on the path to modernity, prosperity and power, but critics say the shy, soft-spoken 79-year-old is in danger of going down in history as a failure. Read the report on the Washington Post.

And the earlier Time magazine cover

The JD(U)'s Shivanand Tiwari says the party will back the quota bill. The bill's passage, however, hangs in suspense as BJP - whose support is crucial for a constitutional amendment - is not keen on calling off its protests over Coalgate that have paralysed Parliament.

BJP plans to open it cards on the floor of the House.The Union Cabinet on Tuesday morning okayed in a jiffy the proposed change in the Constitution to undo a Supreme Court ruling that put a spanner in the "promotion quota" by requiring states to prove with quantifiable data that SCs and STs are backward and inadequately represented in services in order to avail the quota.

The SC/ST Quota promotion bill will be introduced in the Rajya Sabha today, but the BJP is unlikely to allow a discussion to take place. SP MP Jaya Bachchan says the Congress and BSP are playing politics over the quota bill. The SP has also spoken to the BJP for its support to oppose the bill. 

Special prayers were held at the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata today to mark Mother Teresa''s 15th death anniversary. Prayers and floral tributes were offered at the grave of the Mother. The Superior General of Missionaries of Charity, Sister Prema, said we are celebrating the Feast Day and the going home of Mother to Jesus.

"Today we keep the Feast Day for Mother Teresa. Since the church declared her blessed, we are celebrating this joy together with all our Missionaries of charity family. It is also the 15th anniversary of the going home of Mother to Jesus, as she called it, when she spoke about death," said Sister Prema.

Parliament has been adjourned till noon, this time over the SC/ST quota in promotions in government jobs. The BJP says the government is diverting attention from coalgate. The SP which is against the quota bill asks how can the government
amend the constitution in one day. The Lok Sabha Speaker's benign expression is suitably stern but MPs continued to create chaos.

Apple Inc could unveil a fifth edition of its blockbuster iPhone at an event scheduled in San Francisco next week. 

NDTV reports: The government plans to get Parliament to function today by introducing in the Rajya Sabha a bill to allow reservation in promotions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in government jobs.

ET reports: The Centre plans to introduce a bill for providing reservation to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in promotions in government jobs, in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, a day after the Cabinet cleared it.

PTI:  US President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney are virtually tied up in the run up to November presidential elections, latest opinion polls have shown. 

 

According to a new survey conducted by CNN/ORC International, both Obama and Romney are tied at 48 per cent. The polls were conducted after last week's Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida and before the start of the Democratic National Convention which started on Tuesday. 

 

Both the CNN and another poll conducted by Gallup said that Republican National Convention did not yield much advantage to Romney as had been the case earlier.

The UN says more than 100,000 people fled their country in August -- the highest monthly total since the uprising began.

Read the full story on Al Jazeera

A suicide bomber attacks a funeral in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, killing at least 25 civilians including the son of a district governor, officials say.

 

Read the full story on BBC

CBI registers 5 cases in coal scam; names Cong MP

Training of Lankan military personnel to go on: Govt

BJP says no to Maya's plea on SC/ST bill passage

Aarushi case: Talwars' maid stands by her statement

Amit Shah, ex-Guj DGP named in Prajapati charge sheet

Doctors go wild in Gorakhpur; thrash patients, journos

'Coal loot took place under PM's nose, he looked away'

Portion of Mumbai metro bridge collapses, 1 dead, 8 hurt

Click here for yesterday's news updates!