Timeline Refresh
Anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare today said he would continue his fight against corruption and goondaism till his last breath.
"I have been fighting corruption and goondaism throughout without bothering about my life and will continue to do so till my last breath," he told reporters in Belgaum.
He recalled the influence of Swami Vivekananda's teachings on him, saying he had once tried to end his life in desperation but accidentally came across a book by Vivekananda which changed the course of his life.
Former Haryana Chief Minister O P Chautala, convicted of illegally recruiting 3,206 teachers in the state, today pleaded with a Delhi court for leniency in sentencing citing his ill health and old age, while the CBI sought maximum punishment for all 55 convicts in the case.
The section 13(1)(d) and section 13(2) (criminal misconduct by public servant) of the Prevention of Corruption Act under which Chautala and his son Ajay Chautala have been convicted entails a maximum sentence of seven-year jail term and minimum of one year.
Fifty other convicts, the chairpersons and members of the district level selection committee, have been convicted under section 467 (forgery of valuable security) of the IPC, and face up to life term as punishment.
CBI prosecutors I P Vaid and A P Singh, however, sought maximum punishment for all the convicts from the court of Special CBI Judge Vinod Kumar arguing that it is a case of economic offence and against the system. The court will pronounce the sentence on January 22.
At the end of trade today, RIL commanded 9.33 per cent weight in the 30-share Sensex, while ITC had 9.27 per cent weight, followed by Infosys with 8.05 per cent. Shares of RIL ended the day 3.4 per cent higher at Rs 889.65, while ITC was up 0.53 per cent at Rs 285.15.
"The final order on the closure report would not be pronounced," a bench of justices D K Jain, P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam said. The court also issued notice to the Gujarat government and sought its response on the plea of slain Congress leader Ehsan Jafri's widow seeking documents relating to the SIT probe into the Gulburg Society massacre case.
An Ahmedabad trial court had on November 27 accepted the SIT closure report filed on March 13, 2012 in the case.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir also directed that the police must register FIR and conduct probe in every case of missing child and a unit of specially trained police officers be formed in each district to handle cases relating to juveniles.
It said that such officers would be in plain clothes and work in coordination with Child Welfare Committees. The Court passed the order on a PIL filed by an NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan alleging that for over 1.7 lakh children have gone missing in the country between January 2008-2010, many of whom were kidnapped for trafficking in flesh trade and child labour.
The 46-year-old 'Jai Ho' hitmaker, who has a page on Facebook, has been liked by 10,138,509 fans and 81,159 people have commented on it. Rahman also posted a picture on the page which says, "10,000,000 and thanks."
Cricket legend Tendulkar is the second most popular face on the networking site with 9,109,898 likes followed by 'Dabangg' star Salman Khan, who has 7,534,958 fans.
Sleek trains streak across China's countryside while Indians cram themselves into -- or cling to the tops of -- wheezing old buses. These are caricatures, of course: Most Chinese cannot afford to ride on their high-speed rail; New Delhi's Metro is modern and efficient. Read
"The worst part of this diesel price hike, a decision in disguise to hike the diesel prices, by announcing freedom to oil marketing companies to decide and take a call on diesel prices is nothing but a deliberate decision to hide the facts from the people. The government is shirking away from its responsibilities, which will have a tremendous cascading effect," said BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar.
The story of University of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o helped his team to victory after his long-distance girlfriend Lennay Kekua died, within days of his own grandmother. He even played on the day of her funeral as he believed this is what she would have wanted.
But now it has been revealed that Kekua never existed and the picture on her Facebook page and Twitter account, which was used in reports across US have turned out to be another woman, who is alive, Sky News reported.
The University of Notre Dame confirmed the bizarre ruse in a news release on Wednesday after Deadspin.com reported that Stanford has no record of her. According to multiple reports, Te'o said that he met her in 2009 following a game against Stanford, where she was a student, and that the two began a relationship while he completed his senior year at the Indiana school.
The website also failed to find any records of Kekua being involved in a car accident or of her death. According to the university, it is Te'o, who has been the victim of a hoax.
Clearly, unenthusiastic about Khar's offer for a "discussion and dialogue" with him, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said here that direct talks between ministers do not happen in a rush. In a statement issued in Islamabad last night, Khar had said,"...it is advisable for the two countries to discuss all concerns related to the LoC with a view to reinforcing respect for the ceasefire, may be at the level of the Foreign Ministers, to sort out things."
Congress president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi plan to speak tough against Pakistan while on women's issue, the party has coined a slogan, "pahle hoga nari samman, phir hoga bharat nirman."
The slogan is reportedly been coined by Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, who has drafted a specific women-centric paper. Read the Dilli gupshup on rediff.com
The fast-track courts are designed to avoid delays, incompetence and corruption ensure quick justice for the victms. The hearing on the case will now begin on January 21.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf directed the committee to "immediately hold talks" with Qadri, who has been camping near parliament since Tuesday with thousands of supporters to push his demand for electoral reforms.
The committee was formed shortly after Qadri gave the government a 90-minute deadline at 1.30 pm to act on his demands.
However, support for Qadri's protest has begun to dwindle and opposition parties led by the PML-N yesterday said they would oppose any unconstitutional or unlawful move to derail the democratic system.
Malik Obama, 54, who shares a father with the US president, told AFP in an interview late yesterday that the achievements of his more famous brother have "inspired and challenged" him to get into active politics in his homeland.
"When I look at the success that my brother has had in America, I feel I would have let down my people if I do not follow in his footsteps and end their suffering through dedicated, honest and focused leadership," Obama told AFP in his ancestral home of Kogelo in western Kenya.
This essay lays out the main findings of the official commissions of inquiry set up to investigate the carnage and interweaves the context of a research study by the Centre for Equity Studies documenting the experiences of victims/survivors in Bhagalpur on justice and reparations, and makes policy recommendations on the framework for reparations for the victims. Read
Also read: Is Pakistan's meddlesome military up to its old tricks? Read
National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Fasih Bokhari's statement came two days after the apex court directed the anti-corruption agency to arrest the Prime Minister and more than 20 other suspects in connection with alleged graft in the rental power projects.
"The annual cap on subsidised LPG cylinders would be hiked from the current six to nine. CCPS agreed to raise the cap from six cylinders to nine cylinders," Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily said.
The cap would be raised from the next fiscal year beginning April 2013, the minister added.
Moily further said: "For now, there's no revision in the prices of diesel. But the oil marketing companies (OMCs) have authorised to make price corrections from time to time."
These waters are also some of the most polluted in the world, according to conservation groups. The Ganges alone receives 2.9 billion liters of sewage a day along its 1,557 mile length. That's enough sewage to fill 1,600 Olympic-size swimming pools every day. Read
Tewari, who was responding to Pakistan''s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar''s offer to hold ''discussion and dialogue'' with her Indian counterpart Salman Khurshid to resolve the crisis at the LoC, said ''the only problem which needs to be resolved is the inhuman behaviour of the Pakistani armed forces personnel''.
"Certainly, we will not fly the Dreamliner until the FAA and our own DGCA give clearance," he said. The minister's statement came after national carrier Air India grounded all its six Boeing-787 Dreamliner planes after a global directive by FAA to stop operations of all the 50 such planes delivered so far to various airlines.
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On the extent of seriousness of the problem with the aircraft, Singh said, "How long it will take, we will all know only in a couple of days but there are about 50 dreamliners in operation for more than a year, therefore more than 50,000 miles. So let us hope they can find a solution soon." The Minister said he had talked to the FAA and the US regulator has said that "it will check all the planes, entire system because of this battery problem".
Also read Sankarshan Thakur's essay, written during the Kargil war: Kargil: One Side of a Bleeding Fence
The honour comes in recognition of an artist whose remarkable originality has been inspired by the daily life of an India on the move, while maintaining special ties with France, where some of his earliest exhibitions were held.
Franois Richier, Ambassador of France to India, will confer the distinction on Gupta at the inauguration of the Bonjour India 2013 festival on Sunday, 20 January 2013, at 9.30 pm at the Trident, Mumbai.
Indian recipients of this honour in the past include Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Raghu Rai, Ebrahim Alkazi, the late Habib Tanveer, and Upamanyu Chatterjee.
A day later, it also saw Prime Minister Manmohan Singh making his first comments on the incident, warning Islamabad that it cannot be business as usual and demanding that those responsible for beheading an Indian soldier be brought to book. More