A Bahujan Samaj Party leader and his two accomplices were arrested today for allegedly abducting and raping a school girl in a moving SUV in Shastrinagar area of the district.

The Class XII girl was abducted and raped on Saturday night, police said, adding that the fourth accused in the case is still absconding. Prime accused Amit Bhadana is a BSP leader of Meerut south wing.

Bhadana, Shobit Gurjar and Ajad Singh Gurjar, all aged between 25 and 32 years, were arrested this evening, said Vikas Chand Tripathi, Circle Officer, Brahampuri in Meerut.

Shobhit is a Facebook friend of the girl, he said, adding that the vehicle used in the crime has also been impounded. "We have also impounded black Safari used in the crime. We will produce girl in court on Wednesday. Further investigation is on," the CO said.

CBI Director Ranjit Sinha was caught dozing on camera at the Ramnath Goenka Awards ceremony in New Delhi, while Chief Justice P Sathasivam was at the podium. The visuals of the CBI chief dozing were projected on the big screens.

Heard from among the audience: That's contempt of court! 

Consent of a girl is not possible in case of gang rape and the accused cannot defend himself on the ground of victim's complicity, the Supreme Court held today.

The apex court said the girl cannot be a consenting party in case of gang rape and it will be presumed that the prosecutrix did not give consent.

A bench of justices B S Chauhan and S A Bobde dismissed the plea of the accused who had submitted that there was consent on the part of victim. It upheld trial court's verdict of sentencing them to ten years of imprisonment.

Reliance ADA Group Chairman Anil Ambani, who has been summoned to depose as a witness in the 2G case, has told the CBI that questions on shell firms allegedly related to his company can be "best answered" by his colleagues as he has "full faith" on them.        

The CBI is likely to seek more time from a special court in Gujarat in filing the second chargesheet in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, saying the conspiracy role needs to be further established.     

A red-faced CBI today ordered a probe into the leakage of its internal documents on the disproportionate assets case against Mulayam Singh Yadav, even as it refuted reports that the case is being closed, saying no decision has been taken on it.        

The Supreme Court today refused to entertain a PIL seeking shifting of the probe into the IPL spot-fixing scandal from Delhi and Mumbai police to the CBI to unearth the larger conspiracy.        

It was a memorable day for the slum-dwellers of Kachchpura near the Taj Mahal in Agra as they had a VIP visitor -- US second lady Jill Biden -- who spent nearly an hour with them.        

The Longlist for the 2013 Man Booker Prize has been released, and Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland is among the 13 novels shortlisted for the prestigious prize.

Moderate to heavy rains in most places in Uttarakhand today triggered fresh incidents of landslides, cloudbursts and house collapses across the state. 

In Mumbai, the flood-prone Harbour Line has come to a halt between Kurla and Chembur due to water logging. 

Weeks after his group firm applied for a bank licence from RBI, Kumar Mangalam Birla today said he has resigned from the Board of the central bank to avoid any conflict of interest. 

The Delhi Police today opposed before a court here the plea of Israeli diplomat attack case accused, journalist Syed Mohammad Ahmed Kazmi, that he should be discharged as the probe agency allegedly did not follow the provisions of the anti-terror laws. 

Update on rain-lashed Mumbai: Harbour line passengers allowed to travel on main line and Thane-Vashi trans-harbour line. Shuttle services to be run between CST and Panvel.

And @chin80 says: But crazy crazy rains! Please leave offices if you haven't. The scene outside is totally different and mad.

Just in: The Supreme Court has rejected Sanjay Dutt's curative plea or a pardon petition in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case. 

The concept of curative petition was evolved in 2002 by a SC judgment to cure any defect that may lead to gross miscarriage of justice in a final judgment/order of the Supreme Court, after dismissal of a review petition.

While a review petition has to be filed within 30 days of the judgment, there is no time limit for filing a curative petition. Dutt's remaining options also include a leniency plea and remissions (like for good behaviour) which can reduce his jail term.

While Mumbai battles the rains, MNS workers are waging war with the BMC. Party functionaries have been holding two BMC engineers captive over the bad roads in Dadar. They say the engineers will not be freed till the potholes are repaired. Complaints about potholes have gone unheeded, says the MNS.

What the tweets say on the Mumbai rains. @ShekharShenoy6m: Heavy rains started again at Goregaon. Skies darkening with heavy clouds. Tweeple take care. Leave early. Reach home safe!'

@swapsd Took 3hrs for me to reach Mulund from Bandra :-( ... Water logging in many places ... #mumbairains

@news_houndz: BMC Disaster cell - very heavy rains expected in Mumbai next 24 hrs; water logging in 19 places; 12 trees fallen; trains 20 mins late.

Pic: Waterlogged tracks at Kurla this afternoon. /Sahil Salvi

SMS doing the rounds says: Red alert by weather forecast. Mumbai is about to face the highest rainfall ever in next 48 hours. Please avoid long-distance journeys. Try not to send your children to school if it's raining heavily for more than three hours. Regards, Maharashtra police and BMC.

It's unverified and there are no reports corroborating this. Don't panic.

However, local trains are running at least 30 to 40 minutes late in Mumbai today and the Met department has warned of heavy rain for the next 72 hours.

Water logging is being reported from areas like Parel, Kural and Sion in the central part of the city. But these parts are low-lying and always get water logged.

Traffic jams roads, Western Express Highway and parts of Eastern Express Highway.


Flooded road at Dadar (East). Pic: Sahil Salvi

Visiting US Vice President Joe Biden met Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi today. Biden, who arrived in India on Monday on a four-day visit to India, earlier in the day, met his Indian counterpart Hamid Ansari.

The two leaders discussed matters of mutual interest and exchanged views on the issues of international and regional importance.Biden will also call on President Pranab Mukherjee and meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders to discuss the India-US engagement on a broad array of issues. He will also address staff at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.

Pic: Sushma Swaraj tweets her picture with Joe Biden.

Just in: A Delhi court takes cognisance of charge sheet filed in the 2000 cricket match fixing scandal involving former South African captain Hansie Cronje.

Thirteen years after the match fixing scandal involving Cronje rocked the cricket world, Delhi Police, on Monday, filed a charge sheet in a court here naming the former South African captain and five others, including Kishan Kumar, brother of T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar.

The trial in a robbery case involving the December 16 gang-rape accused today commenced before a Delhi court which recorded statements of two police officials who were part of the probe into the case.


The court, which had on July 15 framed charges of kidnapping and dacoity against the four accused, recorded the statements of the two prosecution witnesses and listed the matter for further evidence on July 30.

The court had put on trial accused Akshay Kumar Singh, Mukesh, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma for the offences under various sections of the IPC, including sections 395 (dacoity) and 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person) for allegedly beating up and robbing a carpenter, Ram Adhar.

Inevitable breakdown of the public transport system in Mumbai after heavy rains this morning. Harbour line services between Chunabhatti and Kurla suspended due to water logging. Central line trains are betweeen 30 and 40 minutes late. Follow @TrafflineMUM for more updates.

In Mumbai, restaurant in Parel, Aditi, has been shut down by goons believed to be from the Youth Congress. Why? The owner found a unique way of protesting the government slapping a service tax for air-conditioned restaurants.
Read 

The restaurant has reopened since that report was published, and yes, the Gujarat CM has grabbed the 'cause' and tweeted about it, calling the shutdown, the height of intolerance.

Pic: The bill with the addendum that angered Congress workers.

Just the other day over tea and cakes, Prince Charles was jovially asking a ladies' circle in Wales for 'any hints' on becoming a grandfather. 'Spoil them and enjoy them -- but give them back at the end of the day,' he was told amid much laughter. Read more

Satyajit Ray was a giant in India, but he also dominated world cinema. Here's a fitting tribute. Read

Absolutely awesome headline on a paper called the Private Eye on the royal baby. See

Following President Pranab Mukherjee's footsteps, Meghalaya's newly-appointed Governor K K Paul has ordered dropping of the colonial-era honorific 'His Excellency' preceding his name for all official purposes in the state.

The much-awaited royal baby born in the U.K. on Monday has some, admittedly tenuous, connections to India. But the response remains muted. Read

And former Uttarakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri continues to accuse CM Vijay Khanduri of negligence. He said hundreds of precious lives could have been saved if the authorities had responded to the situation in time. That's something he has been saying for over a month.

The security around Joe Biden's visit to India may be among the tightest in the world, but it faced an unanticipated threat during the U.S. vice president's first engagement -- a pack of monkeys. Read

Prince William and The Duchess of Cambridge's new born baby is distantly related to Count Dracula, the 15th century prince who was the inspiration behind Bram Stoker's famous vampire, according to genealogists.

Experts also traced the family tree back to an Islamic sultan, who is believed to have descended from the Prophet Mohammed.

Kate gave birth to the baby at 4:24 pm on Monday at St. Mary's Hospital in London. Prince William was by her during the delivery.

The Unicef has reportedly found that there are more than 30 million girls who are 'at risk' of being subject to Female Genital Mutilation over the next decade.

FGM, a ritual cutting of girls' genitals is practised by some African, Middle Eastern and Asian communities in the belief it protects a woman's virginity and more than 125 million girls and women alive today underwent this procedure which is now opposed by a majority of countries where it was practiced, BBC reports.

India has long been viewed as a value investor's dream: rapid growth, 1.2 billion people pining for a taste of globalization, and underdeveloped industries ripe for turnarounds. So it surprised few when the genre's guru, Warren Buffett, placed a bet on the world's ninth-biggest economy. Read

A Special Investigating Team (SIT) constituted to probe the death of 23 children poisoned after consuming their mid-day meal in Bihar's Saran district began today. The team visited the village where it took place, police officials said.

An eight-member SIT headed by Saran Superintendent of Police Sujit Kumar was formed on Monday to probe the case. "Besides, Kumar, the team comprises Vaishali SP Arvind Gupta, two inspector and five sub inspectors," an official in police headquarters said.

SIT began its operation to arrest Meena Devi, the absconding principal of the government primary school at Gandaman village in Saran, where the children died. A court in Saran district on Monday had issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against Meena Devi. -- MI Khan

The BJP, if voted to power, will create an atmosphere of "mutual goodwill and trust" with the US, party president Rajnath Singh said in Washington, asking America to look at India as a long-term strategic partner and "not merely as a transactional" relationship.

Besides strongly raising India's concerns over H-1B visa issues as mentioned in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill, Singh said the BJP-government would give new impetus to Indo-US ties, which is not only in the interest of the largest democratic countries of the world, but also in interest of regional and global peace, stability and prosperity. 

THE royal baby means THREE direct-descendant heirs are alive during a monarch's reign -- for the first time since 1894.The newborn boy will be third in line after grandfather Prince Charles and dad Prince William.And if he lives to the Queen's current age of 87 he could well be on the throne in 2100 -- as Britain's first monarch of the 22nd century. Read more 

PM Manmohan Singh is due to hold talks with US Vice-President Joe Biden. Biden who is on a four-day visit to India to boost diplomatic and economic ties, will also meet the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj. Biden is the first US vice-president to visit India in three decades. He will also travel to Mumbai to meet business leaders and deliver a speech on the economy. 

The recent Supreme Court ruling should serve as an occasion for sober reflection on the vexed question of award of compensation to victims of road accidents. To be sure, the pecuniary and non-pecuniary nature and extent of loss sustained by victims and their families are factored into the computation of the quantum of reparations.  Read

At least seven people have died as a bus carrying 50 passengers, most of them school and college students, fell into a lake near Mangalore in Karnataka today. The accident happened around 10 am when the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus was going from Sakleshpor near Mangalore to Belluer. It plunged into the Vishnu Samudra Lake. -- NDTV

Pic: Representative picture.

After many, many hours of televised twaddle, Britain has a new prince. 8lbs, 6 ounces, who came into this world at 4:24 pm. The time, now, is for the world to leave the new parents along. Read

Six persons, including two children, were today killed when the wall of a building collapsed on two adjacent huts in MJ Colony here. The incident took place between 1.45 am and 2 am when the retaining wall of the building came down crashing.

If the Sangh Parivar is honest it can co-exist with Muslims on the basis of the values that Islam and Hinduism share. Read

Historian, author, columnist Ramchandra Guha on what Hindus can and should be proud of. Read 

Kate Middleton and Prince William are believed to have delayed making the announcement immediately so that they could enjoy some private time with their newborn, the Guardian tells us.

William telephoned his family to tell them the good news, speaking to the Queen, his father Charles and younger brother Prince Harry.

Marcus Setwell, who led the medical team which delivered the future king, said "wonderful baby, beautiful baby" as he left the Lindo wing.

The birth of the baby prince means the monarchy has three generations of heirs to the throne for the first time since 1894 and the birth of the future Edward VIII.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has not made a single visit to any of the hospitals where the 40 children who fell ill after consuming pesticide laced food were admitted.

When he has deigned to finally make a statement, it's to propagate a conspiracy theory. Nitish Kumar has alleged that BJP and RJD had a "secret understanding" to derive political mileage from the incident.

"The Forensic Science Laboratory, which highlights the presence of pesticide in the mid-day meal, has confirmed our apprehensions about a conspiracy behind the tragedy at a school in Saran last week", he told a meeting of party MPs, MLAs and office-bearers yesterday as part of Mission 2014 Lok Sabha elections. "RJD and BJP had called bandh together on both the occasions and this confirms the secret understanding between them", Kumar said.

He said he is apprehending that more such incidents will take place as part of the opposition's efforts to destabilize his government and asked the partymen to be prepared for it. 

The level of the Bihar government's lethargy and callousness is far more serious than what is known in public. The TOI has tracked details of at least Rs 700 crore allocated for the mid-day meal scheme and around Rs 1,000 crore earmarked for upgrading government hospitals. Most of the money is either lying unspent, or there were no proper documentation of how they were spent. Read

Outside Britain, the world carries on. Here's an update on the Chhapra mid-day meal tragedy.

Serum tests conducted on blood samples of four children, who are in critical condition after consuming the fatal free lunch at their school last week in Bihar's Chhapra, indicate that the victims were exposed to "acute poisoning".

The results of the tests, held in Mumbai, suggest that a toxic substance was mixed with the food immediately before it was served to the children. 23 died while several others were hospitalised after eating the mid-day meal. More

Heartening to see that Congress is trending above Royalbaby on Twitter, with HappybirthdayHimesh just after. 

The British tabloid, The Sun, as always, had the best headline. A simple, The Son. See

US President Barack Obama and lawmakers today congratulated Britain's royal family on the birth of a new prince, who is now the third in line to the British throne.        

 

"Michelle and I are so pleased to congratulate The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the joyous occasion of the birth of their first child. We wish them all the happiness and blessings parenthood brings," Obama said in a statement.        

 

"The child enters the world at a time of promise and opportunity for our two nations," he said. "Given the special relationship between us, the American people are pleased to join with the people of the United Kingdom as they celebrate the birth of the young prince," Obama said.        

 

Obama was not the only one to congratulate the British royal family. The House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, was among the first to write on twitter -- the micro blogging site. "Wishing Prince William and Duchess Kate much joy and happiness as Great Britain welcomes the newest member of the Royal Family," she tweeted. "The US shares your joy, as you welcome this precious gift into the world," said Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

The BSE benchmark Sensex surged over 173 points in early trade today extending gains for the fourth straight session on sustained buying by funds amid a firm trend on other Asian bourses.        

 

The 30-share index, which had gained nearly 308 points in the previous three sessions, rose further by 173.38 points, or 0.86 per cent, to 20,332.50 with stocks of banking, IT and sectors leading the rise.        

 

The National Stock Exchange index Nifty gained 51.20 points, or 0.85 per cent, to 6,083.00. Brokers said sustained buying by funds amid a firming trend in other Asian bourses after weak US data raised the likelihood that the Federal Reserve would keep its stimulus programme in place for some time, influenced the trading sentiment here.  

 

In Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose by 0.47 per cent, while Japan's Nikkei by 0.77 per cent in early trade. The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.01 per cent higher in Monday's trade.

A top self-styled commander of Jaish-e-Mohammad militant outfit was killed in an encounter with security forces in Kupwara district of Kashmir, police said Tuesday.  

 

"Qari Yasir, top most Jaish commander, was gunned down by police with the assistance of army at village Garewad in Lolab area of Kupwara this morning," a police spokesman said. Further details of the incident are awaited, he added.

Former Bharatiya Janata Party leader and key LK Advani aide has hit out at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his 'Hindu nationalist' and 'burqa' remarks. Talking to CNN-IBN, he has warned that the BJP and the RSS are making a mistake by not reaching out to Muslims.

 

Speaking on Modi's 'burqa of secularism' remark against the Congress, Kulkarni said, "I tweeted that day that it was the most inappropriate comment to have been made by a leader of national stature because after all, we should be sensitive.

 

One may or may not like that some people wear a particular costume, that's not an issue, it's their right and to use burqa in a particular context associated with secularism is inappropriate." He also said that Modi's 'Hindu nationalist' remark was not acceptable.

Read the full report on CNN IBN

Chinese incursions on; PLA once came 2kms close to Indian posts 

Bengal's shame: Trinamool MLA threatens to behead Congress leader

US Vice President Joe Biden arrives in India 

Chargesheet in Cronje match-fixing case finally filed

Saina gets easy draw in World Championships