British lawmakers will ask Rupert Murdoch to return to London to answer further questions about wrongdoing at his U.K. newspapers in light of a secret recording that emerged earlier this month, a senior parliamentarian said Tuesday.

South Africa's national prosecutor will decide this week whether to level criminal charges of grave tampering against Nelson Mandela's grandson Mandla, a spokesman said today. 

The probe into the multiple blastsin Bodh Gaya was tonight handed over to the National Investigation Agency by the Centre following a request from the Bihar government.       

The ministry of home affairs has notified that thei nvestigations in the July 7 serial blasts case stand transferred to the NIA from the Bihar police, home ministry officials said.

Hazem el-Beblawi, a liberal economist and Egypt's former finance minister, was today appointed as the country's new prime minister in a transitional government as the interim President unveiled a roadmap for fresh polls by early next year to end the raging political crisis.

Interim president Adly Mansour appointed El-Beblawi to Egyptian premiership, presidential spokesman Ahmed El-Moslamany announced. He also appointed Nobel laureate and former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei as Vice President for foreign affairs.

The death toll in the collapse of a Secunderabad hotel building mounted to 17 today with four more bodies being pulled out from under the debris even as the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation launched a drive to demolish unsafe buildings.

"Fifteen people are undergoing treatment for injuries they sustained in the collapse of City Light Hotel and Bakery on Rashtrapati Road yesterday," GHMC Commissioner M T Krishna Babu told PTI. The removal of the debris would continue tonight as well, he said.

CNN reports: A tweet by a Russian lawmaker today announced that NSA leaker Edward Snowden had accepted Venezuela's offer of asylum.But the news remains unconfirmed.

The lawmaker who sent the tweet, Russian parliamentary spokesman Alexei Pushkov, deleted the message and followed up by saying he got the news from a media report.

Read the full report here

Pakistan today blocked the website of Al-Jazeera after it leaked a controversial report about Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's decade-long stay in the country before he was killed by United States special forces at his Abbottabad hideout.

The Qatar-based broadcaster uploaded yesterday a report by Pakistani investigators detailing official failure to check bin Laden's free movement and unhindered stay at several places before killed in secret US raid in garrison town of Abbotabad in 2010.

With the Congress top brass in New Delhi likely to take a final call on Friday on the vexed Telangana issue, the development has sparked a flurry of activities in the Andhra Pradesh capital.

All India Congress Committee general secretary and in-charge of Andhra affairs, Digvijay Singh indicated in New Delhi on Tuesday that the Congress core Ccmmittee would take a decision on the statehood issue at its meeting on July 12.

Singh is believed to have called Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy over phone this evening and asked him to "come prepared" to New Delhi on Friday.

An earthquake of 5.1 on the Richter scale hits Keyalang in Himachal Pradesh. So far there have been no reports of any damage in the state, which was recently ravaged by floods.  

The Supreme Court today took strong exception to an attempt by a senior law officer to oppose the plea of Gujarat's Additional DGP P P Pandey in connection with the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case without the Centre fulfilling the procedural requirement.

"You (Additional Solicitor General) have no business to address the court," a bench comprising Justices Gyan Sudha Misra and Kurian Joseph said.             The bench made the remarks after Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising replied in the negative to its question whether the Centre has filed a caveat (to pre-empt an ex-parte order) in the matter or not.

The apex court had asked the question "have you entered into a caveat".
Before the issue of caveat had arisen, the ASG had sought dismissal of Pandey's petition.

She had objected to the decision of the court deferring the hearing of the matter for non-appearance of Pandey's counsel for tomorrow.

This statement of Jaising irked the bench which said the Centre has no locus standi in the matter.

However, the ASG stood her ground and said Union of India is a party and she has a right to oppose Pandey's plea.

While the ASG was making submission in high pitch, Justice Misra said, "You are not supposed to be omnipresent. You cannot show temper like this".

Former Madhya Pradesh finance minister Raghavji, who has been arrested on charges of sodomising his domestic help, has been sent to jail.

Raghavji was today arrested in Bhopal following sodomy allegations levelled against him by his domestic servant Rajkumar Dangi, police said.

"Raghavji has been arrested from a flat in Koh-e-Fiza locality in the old city area of Bhopal where he was hiding," Inspector General Bhopal Range Upendra Jain said.

The door of the flat was locked from outside and Raghavji was inside, police said.

Acting on a tip-off, police reached the flat some time back and knocked the door. "When nobody responded, police broke open the door and found Raghvaji," the IG said.

After his formal arrest, he is being brought to the Habibganj Police Station, where an FIR against him had been registered two days back. Soon after the registration of an FIR, Raghavji, who celebrated his 79th birthday on Sunday, went missing from Vidisha.

Ganesh Nadar reporting from Dharmapuri says the Madras High Court will give its decision on whether a second postmortem will be done on Ilavarasan, at around 10:30 am tomorrow. Much of the crowd assembled outside the hospital has dispersed.

The global anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International, has released the eighth edition of its corruption barometer report this morning. The report asks people around the world whether they think corruption in the country they live in has worsened or improved in the past 12 months. Read

The revolution will not be televised, but it might be tweeted. A new study shows that Twitter has a lead time on newswires for certain stories -- including sports, disasters, and sometimes riots. Read

A fish scarcity is forcing India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar to pick bones with each other. Read

Pakistan government today said that it was too early to say whether someone would be punished for failing to detect Osama bin Laden's decade-long stay in the country, a day after a leaked report blamed authorities for negligence in tracing the slain al-Qaeda chief.

Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid said that government was not in a hurry to take action against those responsible for negligence in tracing bin Laden. "It is too early to ask this question," Rashid told reporters when asked about any punitive measures being contemplated by the authorities against those who failed to locate al-Qaeda chief's whereabouts in the country.

In another incursion, Chinese troops intruded into the Chumar sector in Ladakh -- the same area which had sparked off tensions in April--and smashed some bunkers besides cutting wires of cameras installed at the border post.

Official sources said today the intrusion took place on June 17 when the troops of China's People's Liberation Army(PLA) entered Indian territory in the Chumar sector and started vandalising the observation bunkers besides cutting the wires which overlook the Chinese territory.

Chumar, located 300 km from Leh, has always been an area of discomfort for the Chinese troops as this is the only area along the Sino-Indian border where they do not have any direct access to the Line of Actual Control(LAC).

The 21-day face-off between the two sides in the remote Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector on April 15 was triggered by construction of an observation tower in Chumar division which had to be subsequently dismantled by the Army on May 5 before the crisis was defused.

This is the South African government's bulletin on Nelson Mandela.

"Former President Nelson Mandela is still in a critical but stable condition in hospital in Pretoria where he has been receiving treatment since 8 June 2013. President Zuma thanks the public for ongoing support and prayers.

We thank the public for the dignified gatherings outside the hospital. Many groupings and individuals have gathered in dignity, respecting the privacy of Madiba, other patients, their families or the hospital personnel. The prayer services around the country are also appreciated.

We thank the international community as well for ongoing messages of support to Madiba and his family,'' said President Zuma.

Back in Dharmapuri, Ganesh Nadar tells us that nearly seven hours after a bench of the Madras High Court watched a video of the first postmortem of llavarasan, the decision on whether or not to have the second postmortem, is yet to be announced. The bench watched the video of the postmortem at around 10:30 am.
In Dharmapuri, anxious relatives of Ilavarasan await the decision. Young men have been abusing cops stationed outside the hospital, but the police have so far not reacted ensuring that the situation remains calm.  

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde will tomorrow visit Bodh Gaya where 10 bombs exploded on Sunday injuring two monks. Shinde, accompanied by Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami and other officials, will meet the injured monks and visit the Bodh Gaya temple, one of the most holiest Buddhist sites, where the ten bombs exploded and three others were defused.

The Home Minister is expected to hold a security review meeting with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and state government officials to take stock of the measures taken for the security of the temple complex. Investigators of the Bihar Police and National Investigation Agency are likely to brief Shinde about the progress of the probe during his visit to Bihar.

We will "not bend our knees before a political conspiracy", said a combative Kerala chief minister Oomen Chandy on Tuesday as the opposition mounted pressure on him to quit over a scam.

The opposition has demanded Chandy's resignation and that he face a judicial probe after Sreedharan Nair, a businessman, on Monday told TV channels he had met Chandy at his office here along with the now arrested Saritha S Nair July 9 last year, in what is being described as 'solar scam'. IANS. Read the full report here.

Listen in:'Thank you:' Cleveland kidnapping victims speak out for the first time. 

Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri's new novel "The Lowland", a story of fate and will, exile and return, of the price of idealism and of a love that can last long past death, will hit book stores in September. Set in both India and America, "The Lowland", is Lahiri's first full-length novel since the award-winning "The Namesake." The book, published by Random House India, will be launched on September 24.

A Congress politician's sycophancy has reinforced the stigma, surrender and subordination inherent in the act of cleaning. Read

Nigella Lawson is thought to have been planning to make her marriage work with Charles Saatchi before he announced he was filing for divorce in a national newspaper. Read

Andy Murray was last night caught in a scuffle between his security and an over zealous fan, who appeared to poke him in the eye with a tennis book. Read

Egypt's interim head of state has set a timetable for elections to drag the Arab world's biggest country back from crisis, after the military removal of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi last week sparked a wave of bloody protests. Read

The Enforcement Directorate is likely to file a chargesheet against DMK MP Kanimozhi in the money laundering case. 

How to wreck a country in 369 days. Read

Two years after anti-corruption protests brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets of the Indian capital, many Indians still feel corruption is on the rise, according to a new survey released Tuesday by Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International. Read

The Andy Murray headlines have ignored the fact that a Briton won a Wimbledon singles title in 1977. Ah, but she was a woman. Read

Reports coming in that Shashi Tharoor's office in Thiruvananthapuram has been attacked by protesters, tweets Shiv Aroor.

Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam today moved the Delhi High Court challenging a trial court order summoning him in a criminal defamation complaint filed by BJP MP Smriti Irani for allegedly using derogatory and indecent language against her during a TV debate last December.

The plea is likely to be listed for hearing tomorrow. Filing the plea against the trial court's March 11 order, Nirupam said the magistrate's order taking cognizance of the complaint is "bad in law".

"The magistrate without application of mind and contrary to law came to take cognisance on the material to issue summons," the plea said. Alleging that the complainant has suppressed material, the Congress leader said "there is nothing in the imputed sentences to make it defamation against Irani."

A Congress politician's sycophancy has reinforced the stigma, surrender and subordination inherent in the act of cleaning. Read

A team of 74 members of the National Disaster Response Force has run out of food and medicines in Uttarakhand's Kedarnath after repeated attempts to airdrop supplies for them failed due to inclement weather, officials said on Tuesday.  Read

Update on what's happening in Dharmapuri.

Rediff.com's Ganesh Nadar reports that Ilavarasan's father Elangovan ahs petitioned the Madras High Court to transfer his son's case to the CBI. Copies of the petition have also been sent to the Tamil Nadu Chief minister and the home minister. He also said that the local SP Asra Garg could have caught the murderers in 48 hours, but could not do it as the case was transferred to the TN state CB-CID.

As Asiana Airlines Flight 214 flew into San Francisco International Airport on Sunday, the Boeing 777's 291 passengers didn't know that the man at the controls had never landed this kind of plane at this airport before. Read

The right to food is finally becoming a lively political issue in India. Aware of the forthcoming national elections in 2014, political parties are competing to demonstrate -- or at least proclaim -- their commitment to food security. In a country where endemic undernutrition has been accepted for too long as natural, this is a breakthrough of sorts. Read

Also read: The challenges and options to the food security bill.

The Raghavji case: It's about consent, not sodomy. Read the column on Firstpost. 

Four years ago, Masood Hussain, one of Kashmir's most renowned artists, worked on a series of watercolors of places, people and activities in and around his city, Srinagar. Imbued with realistic touches, alive with filigree details, and emitting a translucence bequeathed by the medium in the hands of a master, the series "Transparent Strokes' was snapped up by visitors to the city. Read

Incompetence and negligence allowed Osama Bin Laden to live in Pakistan undetected for almost a decade, a leaked government report suggests.A version of the report leaked to al-Jazeera says the killing of Bin Laden by US forces was a "criminal act of murder" ordered by the US president.It also reveals details of the al-Qaeda leader's whereabouts and day-to-day life after fleeing Afghanistan in 2001.Bin Laden was killed by US forces in north-west Pakistan in May 2011. Read

An Army jawan has gone missing with a service rifle and ammunition from a camp in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said today. Sepoy Shrikant Tukaram went missing on the night of July 6 with his INSAS rifle, three magazines and 60 rounds from the Army camp, SSP, Udhampur, Anil Magotra said. On a complaint lodged by Army, a case has been registered last evening and search to track him is going on, Magotra said. Tukaram belongs to Maharashtra and is a jawan of 874 Battalion of Army.

CRPF and Bihar Military Police have taken over charge of the security at the historic Bodhgaya temple even as the person detained on the basis of his voter card continues to remain under NIA custody today.

BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar sprang a surprise at the BJP parliamentary board on Monday that Karnataka governor Hansraj Bharadwaj had shared a top secret news about possible snap polls to be held in November.

Hansraj apparently got this news from 10 Janpath and based on this, the BJP Parliamentary Board has swung into action to deliberate on the snap polls. Ananth Kumar's apparent hotline to 10 Janpath brought a smile to Narendra Modi's face.

Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj also concurred with Ananth Kumar that the Congress was gearing up for snap polls, which is why the monsoon session of Parliament is not being convened and the ordinance route was adopted to pass the Food Security Bill. 

Update on the Raghavji case: The IG Bhopal says the former finance minister of Madhya Pradesh has been charged with sodomy and threatening his domestic help. The CD that purportedly shows Raghavji sodomising his servant has been sent to the forensics lab to check the veracity of the claims.  

With the Congress projecting the food security bill as a game changer, Sonia Gandhi has called a meeting of its Chief Ministers and PCC chiefs on July 13 to discuss the issue.

The meeting called days after the government rushed through an ordinance on the key measure is an indication that the party is keen to pull out all the stops in propagating the food security scheme that will provide right to cheap food grains to 82 crore people.

This will be the first major gathering of Congress leaders after the party's Chintan Shivir in Jaipur in January this year.

Update on the Raghavji arrest. The former minister has now resurfaced and has been brought to the Habibganj police station.

The complainant, Rajkumar, who was working for Raghavji for the past four years, had approached Habibganj police station on July 4 to file a case alleging that the minister forced him to perform unnatural sexual acts luring him by an offer of a government job.

He was said to be in possession of a CD containing graphic scenes purportedly featuring the sacked minister sodomizing him. He said he was forced to take the step as two other domestic helps at the minister's bungalow had started blackmailing him.

Former Madhya Pradesh finance minister Raghavji has been arrested on charges of sodomy. He had been forced to resign last week for allegedly sodomising his servant.

Raghavji was missing ever since the FIR was filed in the case. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan rejected the Congress's allegation of protecting Raghavji. He said that the law will take its course but the Congress has continued to target the government on the case.

The CBI has found that Ishrat Jahan, the 19-year-old woman killed in an encounter in 2004, was not a terrorist. It also found the involvement of senior officers of the Gujarat police and the Intelligence Bureau (IB). Rest assured, no other case of  "encounter' involving the IB and the Gujarat police will be heard of in the near future. Here's what the Tribune, Pakistan has to say. Read

Suspecting the role of home grown sleeper modules of terror groups in Mahabodhi temple blasts, BJP today lashed out at the UPA government for "totally failing" in tackling terror and accused it of linking the nation's security with "vote bank politics".

BJP President Rajnath Singh, who visited Bodhgaya along with senior leaders Arun Jaitley and Ravishankar Prasad, demanded a thorough probe into the incident and urged the Centre to show "firm will" to fight the menace of terror.

Both Singh and Jaitley also alluded to the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, which has led to some sort of a CBI-versus IB face off and triggered speculation that probe findings in the "fake encounter" case could reach to Narendra Modi's door.

The right to food is finally becoming a lively political issue in India. Aware of the forthcoming national elections in 2014, political parties are competing to demonstrate -- or at least proclaim -- their commitment to food security. In a country where endemic undernutrition has been accepted for too long as natural, this is a breakthrough of sorts. Read

Armed with the support of 42 MLAs in the 82-member Jharkhand Assembly, JMM Legislature Party leader Hemant Soren would formally stake claim to form government today.

"The JMM leader sought time between 5 pm and 6 pm to stake claim for a new government formation, and Governor Syed Ahmed gave him time at 5.30 pm," said an official attached to Raj Bhavan.

The development comes nine days before the six-month period of President's rule ends. Yesterday, JMM General Secretary Vinod Pandey had said the party would likely stake claim to form the ninth coalition government today with the required majority.

The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the CBI on Lalu's plea alleging that the trial court judge is biased against him as he is related to a minister in the Nitish Kumar government.

Lalu tells the court, while expressing apprehension of bias against him by the trial court judge that his, "biggest political enemy is Nitish Kumar." 

The case relates to fraudulent withdrawal of around Rs 35 crore from the Chaibasa treasury and is one among the 53 cases related to the fodder scam being heard in Jharkhand. BJP leader Saryu Rai, a petitioner in this case, had accused Prasad of deliberately delaying the judicial process by repeatedly raising irrelevant and frivolous issues.

Relief for Lalu Prasad Yadav. The Supreme Court has restrained a Jharkhand court from delivering judgement in the fodder case involving former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav. The order was expected on July 15.

Ishrat Jahan case: A special CBI court has rejected the bail plea of NK Amin. Amin, one of accused cops in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, sought default bail from the special CBI court last week. Amin's lawyer, Ruturaj Nanavati, sought bail for Amin on the ground that the CBI failed to file a complete chargesheet within the stipulated 90 days. The mandatory period of 90 days for Amin ended on Wednesday evening, but the CBI came up with the chargesheet an hour before. 

The Army today foiled a major infiltration bid by militants to sneak into Kashmir from across the Line of Control in Kupwara district.

Suspicious movement of about eight to nine persons was noticed in the area between the LoC and fencing in Furkian gali in Kupwara, a Defence spokesman said.

On being challenged, the militants opened fire which was retaliated. "Heavy casualty is expected on the militant side. However, the operation is still in progress as intermittent exchange of firing is going on," the spokesman said.

Just in: One Army jawan has been injured in a IED blast along the LoC in Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir. This is the second IED blast in two weeks.

Just in: The Supreme Court has pulled up the Centre for not being serious in framing a scheme to curb the sale of acid to prevent acid attack cases. The Supreme Court today told the Centre, "People are dying every day because of acid attacks, but you are not worried about it. If the government fails to come out with a scheme, we would pass an order on curbing easy availability of acid in the market."

Also read: Acid attack victim's family demands CBI probe

Meanwhile, our sources in Delhi tell us that MPs Arun Jaitley and Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday submitted a 450-page disciplinary committee report on the conduct of Lalit Modi to BCCI. Scindia refused to comment on the contents of the report and said that the Disciplinary Committee of the BCCI would release the salient features of their findings. Jaitley is vice-president BCCI, while Scindia, is its finance committee member.

Rediff.com's Ganesh Nadar reports that the Superintendent of Police of Salem is guarding the road to the riot-affected villages. The press has been stopped from going in. There are three SPs on duty from the districts of Salem, Krishnagiri and of course, Dharmapuri. Section 144 has been imposed in Dharmapuri.

What is happening right now is that two Madras High Court judges are viewing  the videograph of the post-mortem on the body of E. Ilavarasan. He was found dead near a railway tracks last Thursday in Dharmapuri.

After viewing it in the presence of medical experts on Tuesday, they are likely to decide on whether a second post-mortem is necessary.

The Bench, comprising Justices V. Dhanapalan and C. T. Selvam, was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by A. Ramesh, who described himself as Ilavarasans friend.

Rediff.com's Ganesh Nadar reporting from outside the  Dharmapuri Medical College hospital, says a huge crowd of people, mostly Ilavarasan's relatives have converged outside the hospital gate. The SP of Krishnagiri says the police have staged a flag march, sending a clear warning that any agitation would be severely dealt with. For all that, no armed cops are visible. 

A team of National Commission for Scheduled Castes had arrived yesterday to take stock of the situation in the wake of the death of Dalit youth Illavarasan, whose body was found on a railway track.

The team visited the medical college hospital where Ilavarasan's body has been kept in the mortuary as per a high court directive. It also visited Natham colony, from where the youth hailed, and met his parents. 

Zara Tindall, a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, is pregnant with her first child, Buckingham Palace announced Monday.

 

The daughter of Queen Elizabeth's only daughter, Anne -- is married to rugby player Mike Tindall. When born the baby will be the queen's fourth great grandchild, after Zara's brother Peter Phillips' two children and Prince William and his wife Catherine's infant, expected in mid-July.

 

Read the full report on CNN

BBC: Egypt's interim leader has outlined his timetable for new elections, amid continuing unrest in the country.

 

Adly Mansour's decree says a panel to amend the constitution must be formed within 15 days and general elections could then be held by February. This comes as at least 51 people were killed in the capital Cairo.

An imprisoned half-brother of former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein died Monday of cancer, Iraq's Justice Ministry said. Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, a former regime official and adviser to Saddam, died at a Baghdad hospital after recently being transferred there from prison, the ministry said.

 

Al-Hassan, a presidential adviser to Saddam, was No. 36 on a U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqis after American-led forces toppled the regime in 2003. Al-Hassan -- the six of diamonds in a card deck that had the names and faces of the 55 most wanted regime officials -- was captured in February 2005, and the United States handed him over to Iraqi authorities in July 2011.

 

Read the full report on CNN

On the first pastoral visit of his papacy, Pope Francis shunned protocol and politics on a visit to the tiny island of Lampedusa off the coast of Sicily to pray for refugees and migrants lost at sea.

 

Francis used the visit to criticize what he called "global indifference" to the refugee crisis, saying: "Today no one in the world feels responsible for this; we have lost the sense of fraternal responsibility; we have fallen into the hypocritical attitude of the priest and of the servant of the altar that Jesus speaks about in the parable of the Good Samaritan," he said.

 

"We look upon the brother half dead by the roadside, perhaps we think 'poor guy,' and we continue on our way, it's none of our business; and we feel fine with this. Lampedusa is just 113 kilometers from Tunisia and has been the first point of entry to Europe for more than 200,000 refugees and irregular migrants who have passed through the island since 1999 (UNHCR stat). The Italian coastguard had just rescued a crippled ship with 165 Eritreans on board just hours before the pope's arrival.

 

Read the full report on CNN

Egypt's interim leader has expressed sorrow over the deaths of at least 51 people near a barracks in Cairo, urging restraint amid ongoing unrest.