rmed Maoists today shot dead a district JD-U leader at Bisanpur chowk in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district today sparking protest by locals.

Three armed Maoists came on motorcycle and fired on Bhola Singh from close range and fled, police sources said. Singh was representative of JD-U MLA from Sahebganj Raj Kumar Raju in the constituency. He died on the spot.

The killing of Singh has sparked protest by locals, the sources said adding that senior police officials have rushed to the spot, about 25 km from the district headquarters.

Describing Gujarat's model of development as a 'self-awarded medal', Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today said its Chief Minister Narendra Modi was selling a dream, but could not deliver results.

"What is the Gujarat model? I would like to know. Its a Gujarat medal or Gujarat model? Give yourself a medal and call it a Gujarat model," Sibal told industrialists at the annual general meeting of the Indian Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata.

"Will Mr Modi tell us what is his economic model for coal, for power? Its easy to sell a dream. You tell a poor man that I will build a castle, he will buy your dream. Because dreams are meant to be bought. But you cannot deliver," he said.

Stating that three of the biggest industrial houses were in Gujarat, he said, "So the GDP of Gujarat will always be higher. But if we look at the social indicators of education and health. It is very poor."

The Lincoln Memorial, an iconic landmark in the US capital, was vandalised today, forcing authorities to shut down the popular tourist attraction until it was cleaned up. 

A spokesman for President Vladimir Putin says Russia has not budged from its refusal to extradite US leaker Edward Snowden, who has applied for asylum. 

Congress today found it hard to defend Digvijay Singh's controversial statements, the latest being his use of '100 percent tunch maal' to describe party MP Meenakshi Natarajan at a public meeting in Madhya Pradesh. 

An Indian man who uploaded a video of an Emirati's attack on a driver sits in a United Arab Emirates jail '" a palpable sign of the region's detrimental defamation laws as well as the country's continued crackdown on social media freedom.

Congress leader Digvijay Singh courted a fresh controversy when he described party MP Meenakshi Natarajan "sou tanch khara maal" (totally pure), remarks that were slammed as sexist and derogatory. 

Congress leader Digvijay Singh courted a fresh controversy when he described party MP Meenakshi Natarajan "sou tanch khara maal" (totally pure), remarks that were slammed as sexist and derogatory. 

Congress leader Digvijay Singh courted a fresh controversy when he described party MP Meenakshi Natarajan "sou tanch khara maal" (totally pure), remarks that were slammed as sexist and derogatory. 

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to face trial on pimping charges, French prosecutors say. That's the breaking story on the BBC. Details awaited. 

But of course, it's taken out of context! Union minister of new and renewable energy and National Conference party leader Farooq Abdullah says his comments that you can fill your stomach for just Re 1, has been taken out of context.

He had said, "If you want, you can fill your stomach for Re 1 or Rs 100, depending on what you want to eat. We are working to change the life of the poor so they can eat well be healthy and India can progress."

Abdullah, now retracts from his statement saying the media had misquoted him.

Also read:  Re 1 to Rs 12 meals: These politicians should EAT their words!

Terminally-ill "Simpsons" co-creator on giving entire fortune to charity: My family's taken care of, and I enjoy this. Read

After his reported controversial remark on Indian Mujahideen, Union Minority Affairs Minister K Rahman Khan today said it was not his view that the Muslim community did not believe in the existence of IM, but it was a general perception.

"I have no opinion. I have not said that, who said that. There is a perception (among Muslims that IM does not exist)," he said.

"The popular perception of Muslims is who is heading IM; what is it. They have doubt what IM is and everything related to it. That is what the Muslims feel and that is what people come and tell me," he said. Khan was reported to have said in an interview to a national daily that the Muslim community does not believe that IM exists in the country.

Union Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde was supposed to attend the foundation stone laying function of the Delhi police's new headquarters at Jai Singh Road in New Delhi.

Shinde has told our sources that the Delhi Police did not get an environmental clearance from the ministry nor a height clearance from the civil aviation ministry. He said he would not be attending the functions till the clearances were in place.

So Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar got the puja done from the Planning Commission advisor Gajendra Haldia.

Shinde, it seems, is fuming.

"I'm 29 now and sitting in my apartment in New York City and I am not a Bollywood star. I am among those countless men and women who thought Bollywood was their calling and ended up somewhere else."

A woman's failed foray in Bollywood. Read 

A 22-year-old married woman suffered serious burn injuries today when her jilted lover threw acid at her face after she refused his proposal in Vijay Nagar area in Ghaziabad. Lakhan (30) had proposed to the victim two days ago at her residence while her husband had gone outside for work.

However, she rejected his proposal which angered the accused and he threatened the woman with dire consequences. The acid attack took place this morning.

This comes even as the Supreme Court ruled last week that nobody under the age of 18 will be able to purchase acids like hydrochloric, sulfuric and nitric.

Shops will have to keep details like the quantity sold and the addresses of buyers, who will need to present photo identification to purchase acids, the court said. 

The rate list at the Parliament canteen. See

Congress president Sonia Gandhi meets Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy over the Telangana statehood issue. Reddy spent much of the day at the Congress's war-room and met with leaders like Digvijaya Singh. Singh has said that the process of consultation was over and it was time to take a decision on Telangana.

Social activist Anna Hazare has said that both Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi are "unacceptable" as prime minister as both are "not fit" to acquire the dignified post.

"Both Modi and Rahul Gandhi are unacceptable to me for prime ministership as both are not fit to take over the dignified and respected post," Hazare said responding to a question by reporters on different forces depicting the two as the prime minister's candidate.

The Congress Core Committee is to meet on Telangana at 5 pm today. Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh says that the process of consultation is over, it is time to take decisions.

A sarpanch in a village in the Sopore district of Jammu and Kashmir was shot at by militants. He has been hospitalised. Details awaited.  

In other news: Sometime soon, a lab mouse could wake up thinking he had snuggled up to a girl mouse the night before. But he hadn't.

The memory would be fake. Scientists have successfully implanted a false memory into a mouse's brain -- a seemingly far-fetched idea reminiscent of a science fiction film. Read

Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan says there is nothing wrong with Digvijaya Singh's comments on her. "He appreciated my work, there's nothing wrong with that," she said.

Addressing a public rally in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, Digvijaya, was in fact praising Natrajan's work. "Main purana johri hun... rajnitigyon ki thodi si baat se pataa chal jata hai kaun farzi hai aur kaun sahi hai... yeh 100 per cent tunch maal hain.

(I am a veteran in politics. I can easily identify if a politician is genuine or fake by what they say. She is a 100 per cent sexy woman).

BJP President Rajnath Singh today challenged Congress to declare its prime ministerial candidate before losing sleep over the nominee of his party. "Will the Congress dare announce who will be the prime minister candidate before the general elections?" he said.

Claiming that there are too many contenders for the job in the Congress Party '" Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram and other unnamed dark horses, Singh said Congress leaders and workers are confused as to who would be the next prime minister if their party returns to power.

BJP MP Varun Gandhi pipes up to say you can get a full meal for Rs 12, but only at the Parliament canteen.

So far, here's what a meal costs in India.
Re 1 for a full meal in Farooq Abdullah's canteen
Rs 5 for a full meal in Rasheed Masood's canteen
Rs 12 for a full meal in Raj Babbar's canteen

There's a petition you can sign to make Babbar prove his statement, but the MP has since retracted his remark and apologised.

Just in: The Supreme Court has restrained the CBI from arresting absconding IPS officer P P Pandey, an accused in Ishrat Jahan case, till Monday on his plea seeking quashing of FIR against him. The court has directed Pandey to appear before a trial court in Ahmedabad on Monday.

And Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh known more for his gaffes than his politically astute statements has tripped over his comments again. He has called fellow party Secretary Meenakshi Natrajan a 100 per cent tunch maal (sexy woman).

Headlines Today reported that at a rally in Madhya Pradesh, Singh was praising Natarajan and said she was a hard-working leader, a social worker, and close to both Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. 

He then said she was a 100 percent tunch maal. To make matters worse, Singh said he knew this because he was an experience jeweler, a connoisseur -- main purana johari hoon.

Natarajan is yet to react to his remarks.

A day of regrets across party lines. After BJP MP Chandan Mitra said he regretted his remarks against Amartya Sen, but stopped short of saying he was withdrawing it, Congress spokesperson Raj Babbar says he regrets his Rs 12 for a meal in Mumbai remark, saying he meant those living below the poverty line.

Remembering those who lost their lives, this date, in 2005 -- the great deluge of Mumbai.  The Indian Meteorological Department recorded a record 944 mm of rain for the 24 hours, beginning 2 pm on July 26 and ended at 8:30 am on 27 July. It left 409 people dead and cost the exchequer Rs 550 crore. 

Here's a slideshow of what 944 mm of rain meant. See

Congress spokesperson Ajay Maken tweets: "We do not agree with Rs 15 & Rs 5 statement of some leaders. Pls see the link to understand the context."

In fact Raj Babbar had said that a full meal (not vada pav) costs Rs 12 and not Rs 15.  

While critics have overblown the cost estimates of the National Food Security Ordinance, the ordinance itself is a missed opportunity.

What is needed is a more comprehensive Act which incorporates measures such as procurement, storage and distribution through a decentralised, strengthened and universal public distribution system, among others and a strong grievance redressal and monitoring mechanism.  Read

The stock response of the BJP to the argument that Godhra makes Narendra Modi politically untouchable is "What about 1984?" There are several inadequate comebacks to that question and the best of them is that no one should use one pogrom to justify another. Read

After Congress' Raj Babbar and Rasheed Masood, Union Minister of New & Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah, of the National Conference, has justified the Planning Commission's definition of poverty.

Asked to comment on the raging debate on poverty, Farooq Abdullah said that one can have a full meal for Re 1, if desired. The minister said Re 1 was enough to survive for a day. "If you want, you can fill your stomach in Re 1 or Rs 100, depending on what you want to eat. We are working to change the life of the poor so they can eat well, be healthy and India can progress," Abdullah said at a press conference.

Yesterday, Congress leader Rasheed Masood had said that Rs 5 is sufficient for having a hearty meal in Delhi.

"You can eat a meal in Delhi for Rs 5, I don't know about Mumbai. You can get a meal for Rs 5 near Jama Masjid (in Delhi)," Rasheed Masood said.

Congress spokesperson and Bollywood actor Raj Babbar was today beaten black and blue by bouncers of a small restaurant in South Mumbai when he tried to leave their premises after paying only Rs 12 for having a sumptuous meal there.

Of course, that's on Faking News. Read

King Juan Carlos of Spain has said he feels the pain of the families of the 80 people killed in a high-speed train crash in north-western Spain.

A day after Spain suffered its deadliest rail disaster in decades, which killed 80 people and maimed scores of others, one question surpassed all others: Why was the train moving so fast?

Investigators opened a probe yesterday into possible failings by the 52-year-old driver and the train's in-built speed-regulation systems. Read more

Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has offered to return the Bharat Ratna if former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee asks him to do so. Even as the BJP distanced itself from Mitra's comment, describing it as his personal view, the Congress latched on to the issue and said the comment reflected the opposition's fascist state of mind.

"It's his (Chandan Mitra's) personal opinion... He has said something he believes," senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi told the media on Thursday, a day after Mitra's tweeted against Sen, who was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1999 by the BJP-led government headed by Vajpayee.

Earlier, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted, "Bharat Ratna debate -unfortunate. BJP is not a part of it. Views expressed by member/s can only be construed as their personal opinion."

BJP MP Chandan Mitra speaking to CNN IBN reacts to the increasing flak he has faced for his anti-Amartya Sen comments. Mitra says while he feels Sen's ideas are outdated and should be discarded, he says he may have exaggerated a little. "I regret what I said, but I don't withdraw it.  I have not withdrawn that comment, it may have been overstated. If Nitish's model is better, why Dr Sen silent on the Chhapra mid-day meal incident. It is well known that Dr Sen is a Congress supporter," said Mitra.

This is the first time that Mitra has reacted since his comments that the Nobel Laureate be stripped of his Bharat Ratna. The renowned economist had said in a recent interview that he would not like to see Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the countrys Prime Minister.

A private member's bill next month is expected to provide clues to whether 126 years of tradition will end and the central intelligence agencies will be held accountable to Parliament.None of these agencies is now answerable to the House, although they find mention in the Constitution.

Born in 1887 as the "Special Branch' to collect "secret and political intelligence in India, the Intelligence Bureau, for example, is mentioned in the 7th Schedule as part of the Union List. Read

Jagdish Bhagwati will wake up on Friday morning in New York to a rare birthday on which the opportunities and platforms to engage in another round of "intellectual debate' with Amartya Sen will be numerous.

From the pages of The Economist, the battle of the brains has now metamorphosed into a brawl about the Bharat Ratna between third parties on television screens. Read

The bombers from Indian Mujahideen's Azamgarh cell who were tracked down to Batla House in Delhi would have carried on with their murderous campaign had it not been for a blunder by a key member of what is essentially a Lashkar-sponsored gang. Read

And while on food, get ready to bite into a piping hot "2G ka samosa" or a toasted "Coalgate sandwich" because restaurants in Gujarat may soon serve your favourite dishes with a dash of politics. Read

On Wednesday, Congress psokesman Raj Babbar said one can have a full meal for Rs 12 in Mumbai. On Thursday, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rasheed Masood went a step further, claiming, "You can eat well for Rs 5 in the Jama Masjid area of Delhi".  However, a beggar in the Jama Masjid area rubbished the claim. Read

Indian-American legal luminary Vince Girdhari Chhabria has been nominated by US President Barack Obama to a key judiciary post in California. Chhabria, nominated to be US District Judge for the Northern District of California, is currently Deputy City Attorney for Government Litigation and as the Co-Chief of Appellate Litigation at the San Francisco City Attorney's Office, where he has worked since 2005.

Live! Sensex up 46 points in early trade     The BSE benchmark Sensex today rose over 46 points in early trade after two sessions of losses on emergence of buying by funds in oil and gas, capital goods, realty and power sectors stocks on the first session of new settlement in the derivatives segment.        

 

The 30-share barometer rose by 46.11 points, or 0.23 per cent, to 19,850.87 points. The index had lost almost 498 points in the previous two sessions.         Similarly, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty moved up by 16.05 points, or 0.27 per cent, to 5,923.55.        

 

Brokers said besides fresh buying by funds in select stocks following beginning of new settlement in the derivatives segment, recovery in the rupee in the forex market, helped trading sentiment to improve.     

 

They said, however, a weak trend on the other Asian bourses, capped the gains on the domestic markets. Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei was down by 1.53 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index shed 0.18 per cent in early trade today. The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.09 per cent higher yesterday.

The Obama administration will not make a formal determination as to whether the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy by the military was a coup, a senior administration official told CNN's Jill Dougherty on Thursday.

 

A coup determination would force the United States to end military aid to Egypt. "The law does not require us to make a formal determination as to whether a coup took place and it is not in our national interest to make such a determination," the official said on condition of anonymity.

 

Read the full report on CNN

US company Halliburton will plead guilty to destroying evidence relating to the 2010 Gulf Of Mexico oil spill. The plea agreement, which is subject to court approval, means Halliburton will have to pay the maximum possible fine.

 

The spill occurred at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico and was the worst in US history. BP had accused Houston-based Halliburton, its contractor, of destroying evidence and asked it to pay for all damages.

 

Read the full report on BBC

Former Union minister Arun Nehru dead

Won't apologise to BJP in this lifetime: Digvijaya on Batla case

Nine foetuses found near Daman Ganga in Dadra Nagar Haveli

Cong MLA, YSRCP MLAs 'resign' for united AP

University of Northern Virginia asked to shut down, Indian students stranded 

2G: Anil Ambani gets exemption from court appearance

Another Indian player slams IBL after going unsold at auction