Maoists today put up banners in remote parts of this district justifying the attack on the convoy of Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh's Bastar area on May 25, in which 29 people were killed, as an act of punishment for "supporters of Salwa Judum".

"How can punishing the supporters of Salwa Judum be an attack on the democratic values," the ultras asked in the banners put up by Gadchiroli Divisional Committee of CPI (Maoists), at different places in Regdi, Kasansur, Ghot and other areas of the district.

"The death of Mahendra Karma and other Congress leaders is a punishment given by the people. It is a natural justice," the banner further said.

Karma, who was the founder of Salwa Judum, the erstwhile anti-Naxalite movement, was killed in the brutal attack in Jiram valley of Darbha region in Bastar.

Former Union minister V C Shukla, state Congress chief Nandkumar Patel, his son Dinesh and former legislator Uday Mudaliyar were also killed in the incident.

The flood in Assam is gradually taking more areas under its grip with around 30 additional villages inundated today, affecting a total of nearly 2,000 hectares of agricultural land in seven districts.

According to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority, Brahmaputra and its tributary Jia Bharali is flowing over the danger mark at Jorhat and Sonitpur respectively.

In Tinsukia district, 14 villages have been affected today, hitting around 5,000 people. Besides, 13 villages have come under water in Dhemaji district, along with 1 in Lakhimpur.

Heavy rains are reported from many parts of the state. So far, nearly 140 villages are under water, affecting nearly 55,000 people, official sources said. However, there is no report of any casualty from any part of the state so far.

With the 25km long Udhampur-Katra rail line, part of the Kashmir rail link project, getting ready to be operational, two new trains for Katra have become part of the new railway time table released today.

The 22461/22462 New Delhi-Katra-New Delhi weekly AC Express and 14503/14504 Kalka-Katra-Kalka Bi-weekly Express are part of the new time table which comes into effect from July.

The timing of these two trains will be declared later as the Katra line is expected to be operational in September after the safety clearance from the concerned authorities, said a senior railway ministry official.

With user-friendly features like route map, station index and trains between important stations, railways released its new time table. Beside, details of extension of 42 trains and increase of frequency of 23 trains have also been mentioned in the new time table.

Police today recovered a grenade from a hospital in south Kashmir's Kulgam district after a militant sneaked into it with ammunition.

On a tip-off that a militant had sneaked into the hospital carrying some ammunition, police evacuated patients and staff and began a search operation, Superintendent of Police, Kulgam, Mohammad Shafi Mir told PTI.

On search, police recovered a grenade but the militant escaped by mingling with patients. "We have launched a manhunt to nab the militant," he said.

Petrol prices have been hiked yet again by Rs 1.82.

More details are awaited.

Tainted in the Commonwealth Games scam he might be, but a defiant Suresh Kalmadi will seek a re-election to the post of Asian Athletic Association's President for a third successive term.     

 

Kalmadi, who is out on bail after being in jail for 10 months in the CWG scam case, will contest against senior vice-president of AAA, Brig Dahlan Jumaan Al-Hamad, in the elections to be held on July 1 here.   Kalmadi, who has been President of the AAA since 2000, will battle it out for a third term after being elected unopposed in the previous two polls.    

"He is seeking re-election and is confident of winning the poll on the back of several new initiatives in Asian Athletics in the last 13 years," an Athletics Federation of India source told PTI.

CWG scam-tainted Suresh Kalmadi will not oversee the conduct of the 20th Asian Athletics Championships from July 3-7 in Pune, even if he remains the president of the continental body at the elections on July 1, Indian athletic body's chief Adille Sumariwalla said today.    

 

"He will not," Sumariwalla insisted when asked at a media conference today whether Kalmadi will oversee the organisation of the championships if he retains his post at the Asian Athletics Association's Congress to be held two days prior to the start of the championships.     

 

"The AAA Congress is held as a part of the Asian Championships, like the IOC's Congress is held as part of the Olympic Games and the IAAF Congress is held as part of the World Athletics Championship," explained the former sprinter.    

 

Kalmadi, a former president of the Indian Olympic Association, is under a cloud after being arrested by the CBI in April 2011 on corruption charges as the chairman of the organising committee of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi three years ago and is out on bail.

A beautiful image of the India and Pakistan's Relationship. See

Nelson Mandela's condition remains critical, but stable. Read: Amina Cachalia: The woman who said 'no' to Mandela. 

Here's where the 50 small airports and 8 greenfield airports will be located. See

Also read: Officials from the City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) expressed fears that the proposed international airport at Navi Mumbai could become unviable due to cost escalation, following prolonged delays.

"Increase in project cost is a matter of serious concern and further delays may lead to winding up of the project and transferring it to Chakan in Pune district or elsewhere in Maharashtra," a Cidco official, who did not want to be identified, told Business Standard. More

The Prime Minister's infrastructure meeting approves eight greenfield airports and 50 low-cost airports. The eight greenfield airports will be in Juhu, Navi Mumbai, Sriperumbudur, Kannur, Goa, Pune, Bellary and Raigarh.

A greenfield airport to be set up by the Airport Authority of India (AAI) or an Airport Company that is in compliance of the guidelines and is beyond 150 km of an existing civilian airport would not require prior approval of the Central Government. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) would be competent to grant license foroperatin of the airport as per existing Rules and Notifications.

Details awaited.

Evacuation continued from Badrinath and Harsil today.  In Harsil, 452 people were evacuated by air, 99 people from Badrinath, while 682 have already reached Joshimath by foot and 750 are now on their way by foot and are likely to reach Joshimath tonight.  Army continued to provide shelter, food, medical aid, blankets and counselling to hundreds of people on the twelfth consecutive day of operations. 

Omar Abdullah tweets his response to LK Advani's blog: Instead of advising me to show restraint Advani Ji should devote some blog space to explain his silence over Art 370 between 1998-2004. Perhaps he can also blog about what constitutional mechanism he plans to follow to repeal Art 370. I might learn something from his wisdom.

Against the backdrop of Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah slamming him on the issue of revocation of special status to the state, senior BJP leader L K Advani today advised him not to use words like "cheating and deceiving' and clarified that his party has always been opposed to Article 370. In his latest blog posting, Advani said even the Congress party- other than Jawaharlal Nehru and a few other leaders- were strongly opposed to giving a special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Advani quotes from a biography of Sardar Patel to argue that even he was against Article 370 but kept his views in the background out of his regard for Nehru. "Omar Abdullah, Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir state, has every right to disagree with the BJP on matters relating to J&K.

"But I would advise him never to use offensive language and words like 'cheating' and 'deceiving' in that context,' Advani said on his blog.

News of a landslide near Monkey hill, Khandala. The Nizamuddin-Goa Duronto Express engine has derailed. Rail traffic from Mumbai towards Pune has been totally disrupted, tweets Dharmesh Thakkar.  

The NDMA says the work of removing the debris from Kedarnath has begun. A team of 50 doctors are on standby in the area.  

Union minister for Information and Broadcasting Manish Tiwari has promised that the government will find the family of a three-year-old girl rescued from the floods of Uttarakhand.

Lying on a hospital bed in the state capital Dehradun, the child is waiting to be reunited with her parents who went missing since the flash floods

The girl has not been able to give her name or the name of her parents or her address and locals say they have no information on her either.

A big projector screen in the police control room in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, was alive with pictures of the latest batch of rescued pilgrims. Hundreds of relatives of missing pilgrims were making inquiries, checking photographs of the latest arrivals of rescued pilgrims and cross-checking call details and last locations of mobile phones of the missing. Read

Sudesh Desai, the housing society's chairman, where the late Wing Commander Darryl Castellino's mother stays, recalls the time Castellino had approached him while purchasing the flat and described him as a humble person. "It wasn't until much later that I realised who he was (an officer in the Indian Air Force)."

Ashish Thakur, another resident and neighbour also conceded that he didn't know the late Wing Commander Castelino too well, but admitted that in the few interactions he had, Castellino had left a lasting impression.

Another member said the only time they saw him was when he would come visiting his mother while on leave since 'most of the time he used to be away on deputation'.

With each passing hour, the neighbours are closing ranks, refusing to speak to the media, requesting reporters repeatedly to respect the family's privacy.

"She is in shock," a neighbour told Rediff.com of Wing Commander Castelino's mother. "You must leave them be," he said.

The last rites will be held on Sunday.
Report by Abhishek Mande

A day after Nelson Mandela's daughter lashed out at the "crass" media frenzy around her ailing father, South African police today asked journalists to leave the road outside the entrance to the Pretoria hospital, where the global peace icon remains on life support.

Reporters were given an hour to remove their cars from the road outside the Park Street entrance to the Medi-Clinic Heart Hospital, where the 94-year-old former president is admitted 21 days ago.

Celliers Street, where the hospital's exit is, has already been cordoned off to traffic. Tshwane metro police told journalists the vehicles posed a "security risk" to the hospital, SAPA news agency reported.

The Park Street entrance is where reporters have kept watch since Mandela was admitted on June 8 with a recurring lung infection. It is also the entrance used by the Mandela family, government officials, President Jacob Zuma, and others to enter the hospital. Mandela's daughter Makaziwe yesterday criticised the foreign media, calling them "vultures". She said the foreign media contingent camped outside the hospital were failing to respect African custom and the family's feelings.

The Supreme Court has rescheduled the dates of the West Bengal panchayat polls; to be conducted in five phases starting July 11.

Update: Martyred IAF Wing Commander Darryl Castelino will be laid to rest on Sunday. No clarity yet on whether the body will arrive tonight or on Saturday. 

Rediff.com's Abhishek Mande reports that cops at the Vakola police station have just confirmed that the body of Wing Commander Darryl Castelino won't be laid to rest today. The body may be flown in either tomorrow or on Sunday.

Heads up if you're in Mumbai. A huge tree has crashed near Heera Panna at Haji Ali Junction causing a major traffic jam in South Mumbai from Wilson College at Chowpatty till Haji Ali.

Motorists are advised to take alternate routes such as Tardeo Road or JJ Flyover to reach the Worli Sea Link. For more updates call Traffline.com at 9223111000.

Rediff.com's Abhishek Mande reports that the family of Darryl Castelino (38), the Mi-17 pilot who was killed in the rescue chopper crash in Uttarakhand on Tuesday, has arrived at their home in Vakola, in suburban Mumbai. Our reporter who spoke to Father Abel Fernandes from Vakola church said he had not been told of any service being held today and it may be likely that the funeral may not take place today. Castelino was a resident of Barrackpore since being posted there last June.

Castelino's family which is originally from Karnataka, moved to Mumbai after he was born. Castelino, who was a wing commander with the IAF was posted in Barrackpore in West Bengal. 

The UK looks set to become the first country to allow the creation of babies using DNA from three people, after the government backed the IVF technique. Read

An interesting interlude between Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and BJP leader LK Advani. In the backdrop of the J-K CM slamming Advani on the issue of revocation of special status to the state, the senior BJP leader today advised him not to use words like "cheating and deceiving' and clarified that his party has always been opposed to Article 370.

In his latest blog posting, Advani said even the Congress party- other than Jawaharlal Nehru and a few other leaders- were strongly opposed to giving a special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Read Advani's blog

Gujarat CM Narendra Modi has done a power point presentation that will be explained to the BJP Parliamentary Board when it meets. Modi's number crunching suggests that he wants to give five points to the Parliamentary Board to increase the BJP seats from 116 to 150.

The Congress seems to be rattled with Modi bashing in TV debates, since it scared of polarisation of votes. So, here's the twist in the tale. The party has asked leaders to slow down on Modi bashing. This information comes from deep within Congress circles -- especially those in and around the vicinity of 15 Gurudwara Rekabganj Road -- the War Room of the AICC. 

Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma is now becoming too hot to handle and has been emitting venom against SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. Verma's nasty comments (we can't tell you what he said, this being a family website) on Mulayam is certain to create discomfort for the UPA in the ensuing monsoon session of Parliament. We can expect the Samajwadi Party MPs to rush to the treasury bench to threaten and intimidate Verma.

Meanwhile, the CPI's D Raja has won the Rajya Sabha polls, but a certain A Raja has lost the game not only in the DMK but also in the JP. We're not saying this -- that's what a senior DMK MP told us.

The government has given its approval for the construction of a 33.5 km-long metro corridor in Mumbai which would run from Colaba to Santacruz Electronics Export Processing Zone (SEEPZ) via Bandra. The approval for the corridor, which is also known as Mumbai Metro Line-3, was given at a meeting of the Union Cabinet held yesterday evening.

The total completion cost of the project is estimated at Rs 23,136 crore and the line through its total length of 33.5 km will be underground.  The project is scheduled to be completed in six years by March 2019 from the date of start of work in the financial year 2013-14.

Delhi Police arrests Jitendra Singh alias Jeetu, alleged main bookie in IPL spot fixing scam.

The quintessential Hindi journalist, from south India. Read

Ganga Dussehra -- celebrated on the tenth day of the waxing moon in the third month of the Hindu almanac -- usually coincides with the opening up of ice-bound holy sites such as Kedarnath, Badrinath, and Gangotri. This time, however, the sweeping devastation along the banks of the Ganga in Uttarakhand, with Kedarnath feeling its full force, swiftly transformed the mood from celebration to mourning. Read

Like countless tragedies before it, Uttarakhand has been reduced to a spectacle by competitive showing off verging on the absurd. The flash floods that brought death and devastation to the hill State were still expending their fury when attention got diverted from the shock and horror of the main event to a string of political shows organised on the sidelines.  Read

President Pranab Mukherjee or Vice-President Hamid Ansari will represent India if beloved Madiba -- the incomparable Nelson Mandela -- passes into the ages. Anticipating the worst, an Air India VVIP flight is on standby in New Delhi.

South Africans have been holding an all-night prayer vigil for anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, outside his former home in Soweto. They have been singing and praying for the former president's health, who is suffering from lung infection and is now on his 20th day in the hospital.

Three union ministers have created a flutter at the Union Cabinet meeting press briefing today. The three rushed from Race Course Road to 10 Janpath to brief Congress president Sonia Gandhi to ensure that a decision on gas pricing is not made.

But Dr Manmohan Singh was adamant to get the Union Cabinet take a  decision -- which in fact, is a clear indication of the political intention of the Congress to go in for a dissolution of Parliament soon after the Monsoon session.

Irrespective of whether the Parliament passes the Food Security Bill, the dissolution of gas pricing and disinvestments of Neyveli and other PSUs remain a concern.

The UPA government rushing to announce the gas pricing hike, nine months ahead of schedule, has put the Congress Party in a tight spot.

Dr Manmohan Singh's intention seems clear -- the government is not keen on Sonia Gandhi's Food Security Bill, but wants to rush gas pricing. A senior union minister said that the government wants investors confidence, but with gas pricing, the Congress has lost the voters' confidence.

At the Cabinet meet briefing, finance minister P Chidambaram suddenly stood up and left and handed over the mic to Manish Tiwari. Needless to say, Chidambaram certainly answered a few tough questions, but did not give satisfactory answers. When he felt that the questions at the press conference were getting uncomfortable, he and Veerappa Moily left. Manish Tiwari certainly looked bewildered.  

A Rs 195 crore-package was announced by the government today for reconstruction of the 'Char Dham' pilgrimage circuit, which was badly affected by the Uttarakhand rain disaster.

Tourism Minister K Chiranjeevi said the fund will be spent for renovation and reconstruction of the sacred pilgrimage sites of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri, and its surrounding areas and the roads connecting it. Chiranjeevi told reporters that the Uttarakhand government will utilise the fund according to its requirements.

'Char Dham' is an important Hindu pilgrimage circuit in the Himalayas located in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. The circuit receives large number of visitors in an average pilgrimage season, which starts from last week of April till October-November. The season is heaviest in the two-month period before the monsoon, which normally starts in July.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is nearing the edge of the solar system and is set to enter the interstellar space, nearly 36 years after its launch. Data from Voyager 1, now more than 18 billion kilometres from the Sun, suggest the spacecraft is closer to becoming the first human-made object to reach interstellar space.

Research using Voyager 1 data and published in the journal Science provides new detail on the last region the spacecraft will cross before it leaves the heliosphere, or the bubble around our Sun, NASA said in a statement.

A disaster like a tsunami or a flood is a cue for traffickers to slip into relief camps posing as aid workers to prey on children left orphaned or homeless, child rights activists say. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights today wrote to Uttarakhand chief minister Vijay Bahuguna to ensure that calamity-hit children in the state don't fall prey to traffickers. Read

The annual Amarnath Yatra began today amid tight security, with pilgrims from both Baltal and Pahalgam base camps starting their journey for the 3880-metre-high cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.

Amidst chants of 'Bam Bam Bole', the first batch of pilgrims started on the arduous 45-km trek from traditional Pahalgam route, and 13-km from Baltal simultaneously, in the wee hours today, official sources said. Heightened security measures have been put in place for the 55-day Yatra following intelligence inputs that militants might attempt to target the pilgrimage, sources said.

State police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have been deployed all along the twin routes to ensure safety and security of the pilgrims, they said. For the first time, the access control agencies are carrying out thorough checks of the pilgrims and their documentation before allowing them to proceed.

In Jammu and Kashmir, militants today carried out a grenade attack on a CRPF picket in Sopore township of north Kashmir's Baramulla district, causing panic in the area. "The militants hurled a grenade at CRPF picket near Sopore bus stand, but there was no damage in the incident," SP (Sopore) Imtiyaz Hussain said. Two people -- a CRPF jawan and a civilian -- were injured in the attack. 

The grenade missed the intended target and exploded on the road, Hussain added. Official sources said the explosion caused panic among the passersby who ran for their safety. The area has been cordoned off and a hunt has been launched to nab the militants, they said. No militant outfit has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

PTI and Mukhtar Ahmad

The Pawan Hans rescue chopper crash landed at Harsil. The tail is believed to be  damaged. As we said, earlier, there are thankfully, no casualties. 

In October 2012, the Uttarakhand government received a 48-page report called 'Investigations in the Asi Ganga valley on the aftermath of flash flood/landslide incidences in August, 2012.'  Here's what it said.

The journalist who first wrote the story with the '15,000 Gujarati pilgrims' claim says his source for the figure was Anil Baluni, the BJP's spokesperson in Haldwani in Uttarakhand. Read

Read the TOI report

Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde is in Dehradun. He will join the Army chief and others in carrying out a guard of honour for those who died in the MI-17 helicopter crash in Uttarakhand.

Meanwhile, a tragedy averted. A private chopper has crashed in Harsil, but thankfully no casualties reported.    

In other news: The Bombay High Court has refused to grant relief to four students, who failed to qualify written test held by Maharashtra Public Service Commission for posts of Deputy Collector as the minimum marks required for passing were cut down due to incorrect questions asked in the papers.

"The petitioners have not been able to establish that the corrective action of deletion of the questions adopted by the respondent (Commission) is either arbitrary or contrary to law," observed Justices R P Sondur Baldota and V M Kanade.

The judges ruled that the course of corrective action proposed by the petitioners of allotment of marks to all the incorrect questions to every candidate could not have been a solution to the problem. Since the evaluation of the papers involved negative marking, allotment of marks to incorrect questions would not have benefited everybody equally, they opined in a recent order.

The Amarnath Shrine Board, which works with authorities each year to help hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit the holy cave in Kashmir, offers a series of travel tips for Indian pilgrims. Read

With the weather improving, the rescue operations in Uttarakhand today picked up pace, with 17 choppers being flown to evacuate people still stranded at various locations.

Mass cremation of bodies in Kedarnath, the worst-affected in flood fury, was on, as authorities were racing against time to minimise risks of epidemic outbreak.

As the sun shone bright this morning, helicopters took off to rescue an estimated 1,237 people now stuck at different places in the hill state, with the Harshil sector totally cleared of pilgrims. About 3,000 people are still reported missing, officials said.

The focus now is on Badrinath Dham area, where majority of the pilgrims are now stranded, they said. All major roads except the Joshimath-Badrinath, Rudraprayag-Gaurikund and Uttarkashi-Gangotri routes have been reopened, raising hopes of speedy evacuation, they said.

Army chief Gen Bikram Singh arrived this morning at Gauchar to review ongoing relief operations and pay tribute to the 20 soldiers killed in a chopper crash near Gaurikund on Tuesday.

The bodies of the 20 jawans who died in the chopper crash in Uttarakhand are being given a guard of honour in Dehradun. 

 Dr. Lalit Pande, director of the Uttarakhand Seva Nidhi Paryavaran Shiksha Sansthan, writes for the Telegraph. "As someone living in Almora for almost thirty years, I am being goaded by some friends to write on the disaster situation in Uttarakhand. I have been refusing, because I do not think people care."
Read the column here

There is something surreal about sitting by a helipad in the midst of death and disaster and chatting about a Hollywood film.But here, among the para-commandos and the rescuers with whom I had trekked from Jungle Chatti on the Kedarnath route, it offered a peek into the minds of the men who were rescuers risking their own lives. Read Nishit Dholabai's report from Gauchar on the Telegraph.

Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde reaches Dehradun, his first visit since the disaster struck nearly two weeks ago.

About 2,500 people are still stuck in Badrinath and 500 in Harsil in Uttarakhand as bad weather holds up rescue operations in the final stages. The Uttarakhand government says there are still 3000 people missing. The 20 men who died in the chopper crash on Tuesday will be given a guard of honour today. Rescue operations in some parts of Uttarakhand are likely to be called off today. Army Chief Bikram Singh, who flew in to the state today, promised that the army would rescue all the people stranded in the state.

NDTV reports: Gangster Abu Salem's lawyer will move an application in a sessions court in Mumbai to seek his repatriation to Portugal in the wake of the attack on him inside the Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai yesterday.

Salem sustained a minor injury on his hand when an inmate fired at him around 8:30 pm. Accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, he was arrested in  2002 along with his girlfriend, actor Monica Bedi, for travelling with fake passports. He was extradited from Portugal in 2005 Libson. 

The move to bring back former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa into the Bharatiya Janata Party is gathering pace with a section of the party strongly pushing for it on the ground that it would boost their prospects in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Several BJP leaders, led by former chief minister D V Sadananda Gowda, on Thursday met state unit president Prahalad Joshi to discuss the issue. Former ministers Aravind Limbavali, Umesh Katti and Basavaraj Bommai have presented their views to Joshi regarding this, party sources said.

There was a landslide in the Mumbai-Pune rail line on the Lonavala-Khandala route. The trains services between Mumbai and Pune will be affected till the tracks are clear.  

Army chief Bikram Singh, who reached Dehradun this morning said, "Some people are still stranded we will rescue them. 5,00 people are stranded in Harsil and 2,500 in Badrinath. The rescue operation depends entirely on the weather."

"All agencies worked in tandem in rescue efforts. We are here to strengthen rescue efforts," he added.

The NDMA said that the rescue operations are likely to end today.

Army chief General Bikram Singh has reached Dehradun.

Twenty bravehearts, who died in Tuesday's chopper crash while rescuing stranded people in flood-ravaged areas of Uttarakhand, will be given a 'guard of honour'-- a ceremonial mark of respect-- by the government today.

CNN IBN reports: Air rescue operations on hold as fog engulfs helipad at Joshimath in Uttarakhand.

The Uttarakhand government has said that 3,000 people are still missing in the state. There are contradicting figures of those missing though as the NDMA says 344 people are missing and that close to 1,800 people are stranded.

BBC reports:  South Africans are holding an all-night prayer vigil for former president Nelson Mandela, outside his former home in Soweto.

The crowd has been singing and saying prayers for Mandela's health, who is suffering from a lung infection.

President Jacob Zuma said that the 94-year-old's condition had improved, but still remained critical.