Daring the military-backed government, supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi have called for a "million person march" tomorrow against his ouster, even as police today arrested two top leaders of an Islamist party in a widening crackdown on protesters. 

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today asked party leaders from Gujarat to focus on issues to build pressure on the Narendra Modi-led government. 

India today said the deep hurt felt by Indian people over the beheading of soldiers on the border has to be addressed for "unqualified movement forward" on the bilateral ties with Pakistan.        

 

On the Islamabad proposal on the talk schedule for remaining secretary-level meetings in the third round of resumed dialogue, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said steps will have to be taken carefully.        

 

"The dates may have come but as I said steps will have to be taken carefully and thoughtfully to ensure that the expectations of our people are also addressed as we move forward," he told reporters here.        

 

Khurshid said every time there is an "opening" (vis--vis resumption of dialogue), India has not rejected or repudiated it. "But experience has taught us to be a little careful".        

 

He stressed that it's important to address "some points of deep hurt felt by the people if we want to carry public opinion with us".   It's our responsibility to attempt to address it so that there is greater public confidence, he said.

Gujarat IPS officer P P Pandey has been given anticipatory bail by CBI court till July 31 in Ishrat Jahan encounter case.   P P Pandey, who was directed by the Supreme Court to appear before a special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Ahmedabad on Monday in connection with the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, was admitted in a hospital after he complained of chest pain.

Prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh has begun his meeting with key members of India Inc. The meeting is likely to be attended by CII president Kris Gopalakrishnan, ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh, and Bharti group Chairman Sunil Mittal besides several others.

The Prime Minister's meeting comes against the backdrop of decelerating industrial production and the liquidity tightening measures undertaken by RBI to arrest decline in rupee. RBI initiatives are likely to further choke growth.

Britain's Home Office confirmed Monday it will demand a 3,000-pound ($4,630 or Rs. 2.75 lakh) refundable bond for visas for "high-risk" visitors from six former colonies in Africa and Asia - a pilot scheme that has brought warnings at home and abroad that it will damage trade.

Britain said in a statement Monday that it will go ahead with the pilot scheme despite the outrage, charges of discrimination and warnings of retaliation.

The statement sent by email did not say when the pilot would start. But it said it could apply the scheme in the future for all visas and any country. -- AP

One person was killed and six injured when an under-construction building in Jammu collapsed.  

Celebrated biologist Obaid Siddiqi, a scientist nonpareil whose pioneering work shed light on how taste and smell are detected and coded in brain, died on Friday of injuries he sustained in an accident two days ago. Read

India's mid-1970s state of emergency and its ghoulish "family planning camps' inadvertently spawned a particular kind of horror film, and the underground infrastructure to match. Don't miss this.

An additional 1,000 paramilitary personnel have been rushed to Andhra Pradesh by the Union Home Ministry to deal with any situation arising out of a decision on Telangana.

The additional forces, along with the existing 1,200 paramilitary personnel, are expected to be deployed in Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions, where protests may erupt if the Centre takes a decision in favour of bifurcating Andhra Pradesh for creation of Telangana state.

How the US withdrawal from Afghanistan undermines the Taliban's case for war. Read

Pope Francis has said gay people should not be judged or marginalised. Speaking to reporters on a flight back from Brazil, he said: "If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge him?"

The Pope's remarks are being seen as much more conciliatory than his predecessor's position on the issue.

Turning to the issue of women priests, he said the Church had spoken and had said "no", but the role of women should not be restricted.

"We cannot limit the role of women in the Church to altar girls or the president of a charity, there must be more," he said in a wide-ranging interview with Vatican journalists. -- BBC

Indian companies became more pessimistic about the economy in the April-June quarter, according to a survey by the New Delhi-based Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India, which called on the government and the central bank to take action to boost confidence. Read

It happens with such regularity that it seldom makes news anymore.

A wave of over a dozen car bombings hit central and southern Iraq during morning rush hour on Monday, officials said, killing at least 51 people in the latest coordinated attack by insurgents determined to undermine the government.

The blasts, which wounded scores more, are part of a months-long surge of attacks that is reviving fears of a return to the widespread sectarian bloodshed that pushed the country to the brink of civil war after the 2003 US-led invasion.

In major changes that Jet Airways reportedly made to the shareholders agreement to win the FIPB's approval, Etihad will now have two directors on the airline board and not three as proposed earlier. Jet Airways will have four directors.

There will also be six independent directors on the 12-member board and appointments at senior levels will be decided by a majority in the board of directors, the revised agreement proposed in an attempt to address the fear that Jet will lose effective control to Etihad.

After the FIPB nod, the deal will now go to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for approval. More

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has cleared the the Rs 2058-crore Jet-Etihad deal. The deal now makes India the proposed air hub for Jet-Etihad, however all foreign appointments will be made after  security clearances. In June, the board had sought more details on who would have "effective control."

Etihad will now have two directors in the 12-member board, down from the original proposal to have three directors. Etihad's directors will be of "investor board" category and Jet will nominate four "promoter board" directors.

In a major embarrassment to Gujarat government, the state information department revealed the identity of a rape victim by releasing her photograph.

The seven-year-old girl was raped last week in Jamnagar. After the goof up by its information department, the government has sought an explanation from the concerned officer in Jamnagar.

The minor girl was lured and allegedly raped by her distant relative, Rama Kana Chauhan (25 yrs), in his autorickshaw on last Friday. He was arrested by police after the victim's parents lodged a complaint.

On Sunday, minister of state for education, women and child welfare Vasu Trivedi paid a visit to the Civil Hospital in Jamnagar, where the victim is being treated.

Following the minister's visit, the information department in Jamnagar issued a press release and photographs giving details of her visit to the hospital. Four, out of five, photographs of the minister's visit to the hospital clearly showed victim lying in bed in the foreground while minister was seen interacting with family members.

Indian Motorsports Federation Vicky Chandok says that the Indian Grand Prix has not been axed, but rescheduled since FI bosses want the race to be in March or April, but not October.

Earlier, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone told Reuters that FI was probably not going to happen in India next year. Asked what the problem was with the race at Greater Noida, near New Delhi, the 82-year-old British billionaire replied: "Very political."

Ecclestone, who has run Formula One for decades, draws up the calendar and usually presents it to the governing International Automobile Federation to be rubber-stamped in September. Read more

The prosecution while arguing the need for the death sentence against suspected IM operator Shahzad Ahmed said that the pain and the suffering of the family of the slain inspector Mohan Chand Sharma must be kept in mind. 

Batla House order reserved till tomorrow. The court to pronounce the quantum of punishment in the Batla House encounter case at 2 pm tomorrow. 

A Delhi court has heard the arguments on the quantum of sentence for Shahzad Ahmed, who was convicted last week in the controversial 2008 Batla house encounter case. But the order has been reserved till tomorrow.

Shahzad (pictured) is the only man arrested in the case. He was found guilty last Thursday of murdering inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led a Delhi Police team that stormed an apartment building in Batla House in Delhi's Jamia Nagar on September 19, 2008.


Also read:A Delhi court on Thursday held that the September 19, 2008 Batla House encounter was genuine. Vicky Nanjappa tells you why.

Food safety in India has come under the microscope in recent days after the deaths of 23 children who ate a poisoned school lunch in Bihar in eastern India earlier this month.Now the quality of milk on sale across the country is under scrutiny. Read

Instead of pouring money into raising a force that can hardly address the Indian Army's drawbacks at the border, our decision makers should have focussed on addressing China's weaknesses in the Indian Ocean. Read

Humans consume 17% of all life on Earth every year... writes Bill Gates. Read

The case against the four men accused of gang-raping and murdering a young woman on an evening bus in Delhi is taking a new twist: One of the defendants has reversed his testimony and is now saying he was present for the alleged attack. Read

With his provocative comments, Narendra Modi is exacerbating the underlying prejudice against Indian Muslims. Read Shoma Chaudhury's column on Tehelka. 

A giant fungus the size of a tyre has been found by villagers in China's Jianshui County.The large clump of mushrooms, which weighed more than 15 kilograms and measured nearly a metre in diameter, was proudly put on display by the finder.It is not known what type of fungus it is or whether the mushrooms are safe to eat.-- BBC

On August 3, Franek Herzog, 82, will travel from Hebron in Connecticut to Orchard Lake in Michigan for a two-day reunion with a group of Polish war survivors.

Mr. Herzog and his 18 friends will spend some of their time together recalling the arduous, improbable journeys they made seven decades ago from their war-torn homes in Poland to the erstwhile Indian princely state of Nawanagar, which provided an oasis for approximately 1,000 Polish children for four years until the hostilities ceased.  Read

Both Houses of the Bihar legislature today witnessed noisy scenes with an aggressive opposition demanding suspension of all business to take on the issue of death of 23 children after eating midday meal in Chhapra forcing adjournment till recess.

An earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale has hit Kashmir. No damage or casualties reported yet. 

Rajnath Singh, the BJP president, ended his six-day tour of the US and returned home this weekend, leaving many Americans with an interest in India perplexed and intellectually shortchanged.

onfusion, lack of clarity, mixed messages and a questionable fundraising effort dogged the BJP president throughout his stay in Washington and New York, robbing the main Opposition party of an opportunity that was available on a platter to present an alternative vision to nine years of UPA rule to an international audience. Read

Santosh Desai's column on the minimum cost of a meal in India. "How much food can Rs 12 (or Rs 5 or Re 1) buy? Outraged by the insensitive assertions made by various politicians, a nationwide inquiry into thali prices is being carried out by various sections of media." Read 

Vinay Sharma, one of the four men accused of gang-raping and murdering a young woman in New Delhi last year, speaks out publicly for the first time since his arrest, detailing, in written responses to The Wall Street Journal from jail, his relationship with the other suspects allegedly aboard the bus on the night of the attack. Read

IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal, who was leading crackdown on sand mafia and was shunted out by the Uttar Pradesh government, today met the officiating chief secretary and demanded revocation of her suspension order. Nagpal was accompanied by members of the IAS association.


"We went to meet the chief secretary and demanded revocation of the suspension. He said he will look into it," secretary of the IAS association, Parthsarathi Sen Sharma said. Officiating Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan said the matter would be placed before Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.


Akhilesh is currently not in the state. He has gone to Bangalore, where he and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav are scheduled to address a rally.


The 2009-batch IAS officer, posted as Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of Gautam Budh Nagar, had clamped down on illegal mining and taken on powerful sand mafia in Uttar Pradesh. She was suspended barely 10 months after she got her first posting in the state.

The suspension of an IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal, who took on the powerful sand mining mafia in Uttar Pradesh, has sparked off a major controversy.

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary has said the decision will be reviewed, after the IAS officers' association protested, saying the officer had been victimised.

Sources said her suspension was sanctioned after the GB Nagar SDM allegedly ordered the razing of the boundary wall surrounding a religious site.

Since the religious structure was coming up on government land without permission for construction, Nagpal reportedly ordered the removal of illegal construction. She was also accused of not consulting her immediate senior, the district magistrate, before issuing the orders. Opposition parties slammed the SP government for Nagpal's suspension.

Shobhaa De tweets: Never understood what the beautiful,intense,sensitive Smita Patil saw in the Blabbering Babber.Maybe he fed her 12 rupee meals?

The government's controversial decision to raise the price of natural gas came under judicial scrutiny with the Supreme Court today agreeing to examine the matter and issued notices to the Centre and Reliance Industries Ltd.

The Army has foiled an intrusion bid along the Line of Control in Pallanwan sector of Jammu, killing an intruder in the operation.

Troops noticed suspicious movement of 2 to 3 persons in Lalyali forward belt along LoC in the district around 20:30 hours last night and challenged them, PRO Defence S N Acharya said today.

The Army opened opened fire on the intruders, who were deep inside Indian territory, he said, adding that in the firing one intruder was killed. During search operation, army found the body of the intruder aged between 42-45 years.

Finance minister P Chidambaram's media meet today. PC says price stability cannot be the only mandate of a central bank. "I do not expect RBI's liquidity measures to result in hike in bank lending rate. The mandate of a central bank is to ensure growth promotion and employment generation in addition to price stability," said Chidambaram.    

"For now, banks have no plans to increase interest rates and bankers have assured me that they will fully meet the credit needs of the industry," he added.

The Cabinet committee on investment cleared projects envisaging investment of Rs 1.6 lakh crore. 

Just in: The injured stunt biker, whose pillion was shot dead by the Delhi police will be taken to the Patiala House court and is most likely to be arrested. 

The BJP was quick to hit back. Party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Prakash Javadekar said Singh must be giving his own example. "Congress is in the habit of cutting out deals...Congress has brought politics in the country to such a low level," he said.

Singh was AICC General Secretary in charge of Himachal Pradesh but was dropped in the recent AICC reshuffle. There were strong speculation that he could be made a minister in the recent reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers. He is a know detractor of Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

A Congress Rajya Sabha member has made a sensational claim that berths in the Upper House are available for Rs 100 crore, triggering a controversy with the BJP today slamming the ruling party at the Centre for bringing politics to "such a low level".

Congress MP from Haryana Birender Singh said at a programme that "once someone had told me that Rs 100 crore was required to get a Rajya Sabha berth. But he said he got it for Rs 80 crore and saved Rs 20 crore. Now will people who are willing to invest Rs 100 crore, ever think of the poor country."

The mother of Karan Pandey, who was killed yesterday when police opened fire during an attempt to stop a group of bikers from performing dangerous stunts, accused the police of high-handedness and demanded death penalty for the guilty personnel.

"They don't fire at terrorists and criminals. My son was not a thief or a dacoit. Police has wronged him as they don't have the right to kill a child. Cops who killed him should be hanged," said Karan's mother Manju.

Karan Pandey was killed when a bullet fired by the police in an attempt to puncture the tyre of the bike he was riding, hit him in his back, early on Sunday morning in New Delhi. Karan was riding pillion on Punit Sharma's bike, who was injured in the incident.

Picture used for representational purpose.

A jilted lover allegedly set a 15-year-old girl on fire apparently after being rejected by her at Kharinasi village in Kendrapara district of Odisha.

The victim, a Class VIII student of a nearby government school, is battling for life while the alleged perpetrator of the offence, the teenaged boy, is absconding, police said.

The boy accompanied by an accomplice allegedly set her on fire yesterday after pouring petrol over her. The victim, who suffered over 50 per cent burns, is said to be in a critical condition, police said.

Indigenously built nuclear-powered submarine, INS Arihant, is finally set to sail out from its base at Vishakhapatnam. The 6,000-tonne submarine, armed with nuclear missiles, is ready after years of efforts interspersed with sanctions in 1998 and impediments due to non-availability of cutting-edge technology. More

Shashi Shekhar who blogs under the name offstumped asks: Delhi Media needs to ask why SoniaG and RahulG have not dared to step foot into Andhra Pradesh (state with most Cong MPs) since 2010.

Away from Telangana, in a town called Bollywood, folks including Ranbir Kapoor, Rajkumar Hirani and Bunty Walia have penned letters for Sanjay Dutt on the occasion of the star's birthday. Dutt turns 54 today.

These letters were posted so that it reaches him in Yerawada jail on his special day. Read

Want to wish the star on his birthday? You can, right here.

BJP president Rajnath Singh had yesterday extended his party's support for the creation of Telangana.

"We support the cause of Telangana. The BJP is committed to forming the State," Singh had said. BJP leaders have been saying that Telangana will become a reality if the BJP comes to power at the Centre after the general elections.

Senior Congress leaders from Andhra Pradesh have gradually begun to accept that the Centre is heading towards dividing the State and many of them have warned the party's central leadership of the many problems that could follow it.

On Saturday, Congress MPs and Union ministers from Andhra Pradesh including K S Rao, Chiranjeevi, M M Pallam Raju and D Purandeswari had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to oppose any division of Andhra Pradesh.

Reports had it that a proposal to incorporate Anantpur and Kurnool districts in the proposed state is also being actively considered by the Congress. The proposal, however, has found no takers in Telangana region.

The TRS has, however, said that it has opposed the Rayala-Telangana idea and maintained that it wants Telangana with 10 districts and Hyderabad as its capital.

The BJP on Saturday urged the Central Bureau of Investigation to clarify as to why it didn't call for questioning some Congress leaders whose names figured in the telephonic conversations between the accused in the 'cash for post' railway scam. Read

A Delhi court will hear arguments on the quantum of sentence for Shahzad Ahmed, who was convicted last week in the controversial 2008 Batla house encounter case. It may also sentence Shahzad today, the only man arrested in the case.

He was found guilty last Thursday of murdering inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led a Delhi Police team that stormed an apartment building in Batla House in Delhi's Jamia Nagar on September 19, 2008. 

Highly placed Congress sources said the coordination committee will meet at 4 pm tomorrow followed by the meeting of the CWC at 5.30 pm. The high-level meetings are being called on the eve of the conclusion of the Panchayat polls in Andhra Pradesh.

These meetings come a time when the Congress high command is said to be inclined towards bifurcating Andhra Pradesh notwithstanding the opposition from within the party and its state leadership.

While the UPA meeting is an attempt to secure a stamp of approval of the constituents of the ruling alliance, the Congress Working Committee meeting is to take a final call after it gets the sense about the stand of the allies on the issue.

While NCP chief and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has already made a strong pitch for the formation of separate Telangana, another ally RLD leader and Civil Aviation Minister is a votary of smaller states and has been advocating for long the creation of Harit Pradesh out of districts of Western Uttar Pradesh, his home turf.

Update on Telangana: Shaikh Mohammed Iqbal, DIG, Andhra Pradesh Special Police Battalion, has opted for voluntary retirement in protest against the proposal for the creation of the Telangana state. His decision sent ripples in the police department. "It is an emotional decision as I was disturbed. I can be more open about my decision only after the creation of the state," he said. 

Coming down heavily on the state government over the suspension of Shiv Sena MLC Diwakar Raote and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena MLA Pravin Darekar, Sena president Uddav Thackeray on Sunday said there was a state of "undeclared emergency" in the state. Read

More on Telangana: The cabinet will meet after the Congress working committee and the UPA steering group approves a proposal to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh, reports the TOI.

Highly placed sources privy to the proposals told TOI that the cabinet will also take a final call on whether to create Telangana or a Rayala-Telangana state. The former will consist of the ten districts of Telangana and the latter proposal envisages the addition of two Rayalaseema districts -- Anantapur and Kurnool to the proposed Telangana state. Interestingly, the Andhra part of the bifurcated state will be called Andhra Pradesh. Read

The Congress Working Committee has been summoned on Tuesday at 5:30 pm at 10 Janpath in New Delhi to discuss the Telangana issue. An email and text messages were circulated to all the CWC members and Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, while six Andhra Congress leaders were summoned as special invitees.

Hyderabad is likely to be a Union territory for five years and will act as joint capital of the two states to be created out of the bifurcation of the present Andhra Pradesh.

The Union territory will be administered by a lieutenant governor. The governor of the Telangana state will be the ex-officio lieutenant governor of Hyderabad in these five years. A proposal to this effect is going to be put up to the Union cabinet before August 5. Read more

PTI reports: A meeting of the United Progressive Alliance coordination committee on Telangana will be held tomorrow followed by a meeting of the Congress working committee, say party sources.

At tomorrow's meet, the UPA is expected to finalise its stand on the vexed Telangana issue amid indications from Congress that carving out a separate state out of Andhra Pradesh is a foregone conclusion and that complexities involved in the process will be adequately addressed.

Senior Congress leaders from Andhra Pradesh said that creation of a separate state appears to be a fait accompli but the party will have to address complications attached with it.

Earlier, the coordination committee meet was scheduled for  July 31. 

NDTV reports: The BCCI said today that the "clean chit" given by a probe panel to the son-in-law of N Srinivasan Gurunath Meiyappan and Rajasthan Royal's owner Raj Kundra will not stand if police investigations find them guilty of spot-fixing in the Indian Premier League.

The panel probe report said it found no evidence against Meiyappan and Kundra.

Srinivasan was forced to step aside as board chief in June after Meiyappan's name came up in the case.

Read the full report on NDTV

PTI reports: The army today foiled an infiltration bid in Keran sector along the Line of Control, killing a militant in the operation.   

On noticing some suspicious movement in the sector, troops opened fired at the ultras, an army official said. The guns fell silent after a brief gunfight.During search operation, police recovered the body of the militant and an AK rifle.

A woman Indian Administrative Service officer, who had clamped down on illegal mining and resolutely taken head on the powerful sand mafia in Uttar Pradesh, has been suspended barely 10 months after she got her first posting in the state.  

A 2009-batch IAS officer posted as Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar in September last year, 28-year-old Durga Shakti Nagpal was penalised ostensibly for the demolition of a wall at a disputed place of worship.   "It is an administrative decision. She had ordered demolition of the wall at a place of worship,' Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said in a post on Sunday on micro-blogging site Twitter.

Around 100 girls of a government school in Jalgaon, Maharashtra have been admitted to hospital after food poisoning. Officials say the girls complained of a severe stomach ache after eating dinner, according to CNN-IBN.    

The controversy over Indian MPs' letters to President Barack Obama for denying visa to Narendra Modi has taken a new turn with a California-based forensic document examiner certifying that the signatures of the lawmakers are "original and authentic" and not a cut and paste job as claimed.

"Using accepted principles and methods of forensic examination, it is my opinion that the Q1-Q3 (three pages of Rajya Sabha MPs' letter) document was created in a single event, and that the signatures found upon it are original/authentic wet ink signatures," said the report after a forensic examination of the letter.

CNN-IBN reports: The Delhi police is  is likely to file a chargesheet on the Indian Premier League spot-fixing case today. The police have reportedly named underworld dons Dawood Ibrahim and Chotta Shakeel saying they virtually controlled spot-fixing.

Read the full story here

PIX: 15 hurt in grenade blast in Guwahati; ULFA hand suspected

UPA coordination panel to meet on July 31 on Telangana

Srinivasan set to return as BCCI chief

India thrash Zimbabwe in Harare, take unassailable 3-0 lead

Muslim Brotherhood claims 200 killed in Egypt police firing

Yesterday's live commentary link