Glaciers in Himachal Pradesh are receding very fast due to climate change and have shrunk by 449 sq mt since 1962. As per a study conducted by State Council for Science Technology and Environment and Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre, over 449 sq km of glacier area in Himachal has disappeared between 1962 and 2001.        

 

Glacier retreat was estimated in Chenab, Parbati and Baspa basins. The overall reduction in glacier area was 21 per cent and it shrunk from 2,077 sq mt in 1962 to 1,628 sq mt in 2001, said the report which was presented in a workshop on 'Snow and Glaciers and the Himalayan River System' organised by State Centre on Climate Change in Shimla today.        

 

Geological Survey of India has estimated retreat in three glaciers in Satluj basin, six in Chenab, five in Beas and two in Ravi basin.        

 

Image: A glacier near Kalpa in Himachal Pradesh's Kinnaur district 

Photograph: Shubir Rishi/Rediff.com

Wednesday marks 60 years since the first successful ascent of Everest and mountaineers in Nepal are commemorating the day Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's reached the highest point on Earth.

 

Just over three decades after they conquered the mountain, Bachendri Pal became the first Indian woman to do so. It was 23 May, 1984 and she was 29 years old. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal's India Real Time, Ms. Pal talked about the struggles she's faced as a female explorer, the ego of male mountaineers, and her sense that climbing Everest is losing its charm.

 

Read the full interview here

Congress will boycott tomorrow's all-party meeting convened by the Raman Singh government in Chhattisgarh in the wake of Maoist attack in which 27 people, including senior Congress leaders were killed on May 25.        

 

Party spokesperson Bhakta Charan Das said the state CLP as also the party have decided to boycott the meeting. At the AICC briefing earlier, Das had, however, said that the party would be attending the meeting apparently unaware of the decision taken by the state unit. Das had also attacked the state government for not calling such a meeting before the Congress Parivartan Yatra started.        

 

The state unit has maintained that such meetings have no meaning as the state government did nothing to provide security to the Congress leaders.

Deputy chief of the Pakistani Taliban Waliur Rehman was reportedly among four persons killed in a US drone attack in North Waziristan tribal region today, the first such strike since the country's general elections.        

 

The CIA-operated spy plane targeted a house in Chashma Pul area of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan Agency, early this morning. Four suspected militants in the house were killed instantly and two others injured. Local residents said several drones were seen hovering over the area after the attack.        

 

Rehman, the deputy chief of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, was among the dead, security officials told journalists in the northwest.

India may get access for the second time to Mumbai attack terrorist David Headley and his accomplice Tahawwur Hussain Rana, currently in the custody of the United States, for questioning.

The positive indication was given by Washington to New Delhi during a recent bilateral meeting held in America. Government sources said following New Delhi's consistent persuasion, the United States has indicated to interlocutors that India could be given access to Headley, who carried out a recce of the 26/11 targets for the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba, for the second time to get more information about the conspiracy hatched to carry out the 2008 attack.

The US, which has not given any opportunity to question Rana, may also allow Indian investigators to question the Pakistani-Canadian, who was sentenced by an American court for his involvement in a terror plot in Denmark.

Mahendra Karma, former Chhattisgarh home minister, slain by Naxals along with 26others, had Z-plus security with 16 armed guards but was accompanied by only six guards when he was attacked.    

Sources said when the Naxals attacked the convoy of Congress leaders on May 25, Karma, Pradesh Congress Committee chief Nand Kumar Patel and others did not have adequate security, exposing themselves badly before Maoists attack.

The Delhi High Court today reserved its verdict on a PIL challenging the appointment of Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar on the ground that he has been facing charges of power misuse and rights violations.

Here's the spot-fixing toll so far: Four more persons, including a friend of cricketer Sreesanth, were arrested here in the IPL spot-fixing scandal even as investigators conducted searches for apprehending more bookies involved in the case, police said today. With this, 26 people, including Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan, have been arrested in the scandal since May 16 when it came to light.

Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh's speech at the Nehru Memorial lecture on Maoists. Listen in 

Nawaz Sharif brings hope but durable peace with India will have to wait. Read Nitin Gokhale's column on the Diplomat.

Science and Technology minister Jaipal Reddy has categorically stated that he will not seek a ticket for the 2014 polls as he knows the internal and external politics of Congress candidates. Insider information from the War Room at 15 Gurdwara Rekabganj Road is that the Congress will touch 120 seats in November 2013, but drop to 95 if elections are held in May 2014. 

Former BCCI President Shashank Manohar on Sunday urged the BCCI to hand over the investigations into the IPL spot-fixing scandal to a central investigative agency which will probe all the matches of the cash-rich league.


"BCCI must come clean in wake of the recent spot-fixing scandal. They must cleanse the system completely and a central investigative agency must look into the aspect during any or every tournament including international fixtures," Manohar told Times Now on Sunday.


Manohar also advised that "every match of the sixth edition (before the final) should be probed. The call details of not only all the players but also the members of the support staff, officials should be tracked in order to carry out a smooth investigations."

NCP chief Sharad Pawar strikes while the iron is hot. Lashing out a BCCI president N Srinivasan, Pawar, who had held a term as the BCCI president says the situation would not have occurred had been in charge. Refusing to stand by Srinivasan, the NCP chief says Srinivasan should quit. "BCCI's reputation has been tarnished by this scandal," he said. He also seconded Shashank Manohar's idea of referring the matter to the home ministry.

On May 24, the NCP demanded that Srinivasan quit immediately "if he has any sense of morality and public accountability." Party spokesman DP Tripathi told a press conference that Srinivasan was under a shadow of doubt after his son-in-law had been summoned by Mumbai Police for questioning.

Indo-Sri Lankan diplomacy is being given a push. The latest being a think tank comprising three advocates, two thinkers and two historians, deputed by a Policy Research Group. BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad and eminent columnist Swapan Dasgupta will interact with Sri Lankan historians next week in Colombo.

Joint Statement on Prime Minister's visit to Japan. Read

The Ministry of Sports clarifies that betting is a State Subject and cannot be part of a Central law. Read

Also read: How binding is binding?

So, what lessons have learnt from the massacre at Chhattisgarh: Read

Meanwhile, China has offered Sri Lanka about $2.2 billion in loans for infrastructure projects and a free trade pact, the island nation said on Wednesday, moves that could stoke fresh unease in India about Beijing's expanding influence in its neighborhood. Read

Saudi writer campaigns against moves to bring women into mixed-gender work environment. Read

Quick updates:

Syed Akbaruddin, the MEA spokesperson tweets that that the Emperor and Empress of Japan will visit as State Guests from the end of November to early December 2013.


IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla says he is not keen on being chairman for another term.


A Mumbai court has accepted an application to file a criminal case against BCCI president N Srinivasan and other officials. The plea will be heard on May 31.

The Uttar Pradesh government has moved the Pilbhit court against BJP MP Varun Gandhi's acquittal in two hate speech cases during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The government will also challenge the acquittal of the BJP national general secretary in a case of vandalism in higher courts.

Japanese PM Shinzo Abe says negotiations for civil nuclear cooperation between India and Japan will be accelerated for early conclusion. Maritime security cooperation will be further strengthened between India and Japan, says the PM. 

Yet more proof that Narendra Modi's is the voice being heard in the BJP.  While penning the political resolution for the party's upcoming conclave on June 8-9 in Goa, Modi got the the wordings totally changed to harsher sentences with a full-frontal attack on the Congress. Modi is keen that the BJP uses, Congress is the nation's enemy, as its slogan, so to speak.

Just in: Pakistan umpire Asad Rauf denies spot-fixing charges. Speaking to CNN IBN, Rauf says if the allegations are baseless and he is ready for a probe. The Mumbai police had claimed Rauf was getting gifts from bookies and has sent him summons. Rauf, who has supervised 48 Tests and 98 One-day internationals and is on the ICC elite panel, was withdrawn from the ICC Champions Trophy after his name emerged in the spot-fixing scandal.

The CBI will summon BCCI president N Srinivasan on Friday for interrogation in Hyderabad in the Jagan Reddy disproportionate case. It is being alleged that there has been an unauthorised release of water for the India Cement factory in Cuddapah getting large quantity of water from the irrigation department of  Andhra Pradesh.

As the managing director of India Cements Ltd., Srinivasan faces considerable heat from the CBI in the Jaganmohan Reddy assets case. The BCCI boss is alleged to have got undue favours from then YSR regime. Instructions from New Delhi were passed on to Hyderabad Joint Dreictor of CBI to speed up the interrogation process. More fodder for Srinivasan's adversaries.  

Here's what N Srinivasan says while brushing aside new demands for resignation. "Rajeev Shukla has only reiterated what I had said on Sunday in Kolkata that I will keep away from inquiry process. The BCCI inquiry commission has the power to impose sanctions and punishment and I have nothing to do with the commission, it is independent," he says. He also said that the commission would be headed by two judges and the secretary of the Board. "We have to now wait for the results," said Srinivasan.

In other words, Srinvasan is firmly staying put as BCCI president.

French gangster Redoine Faid, the subject of an international manhunt after his brazen escape from a prison last month, is back in custody, the country's interior ministry said Wednesday. Faid held five people, including four guards, at gunpoint at a detention center in the northern city of Lille on April 13, officials said. Read

Piece first performed in Paris exactly 100 years ago emblematic of era of great scientific, artistic and intellectual ferment. Read the full story here. 

Pritish Nandy on why he doesn't give a damn whether N Srinivasan stays as the BCCI chief or goes... Read

Lalu Prasad's RJD today said since there was no criminal liability on BCCI President N Srinivasan in the IPL spot-fixing scandal, he need not resign from his post.

"There is no criminal liability on him (Srinivasan) so he need not quit," senior RJD leader and Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) Working President Abdul Bari Siddiqui told PTI. RJD chief Lalu Prasad is the President of BCA. Law makes it clear that even in case of son or wife of a person found indulging in any illegal act, the criminal liability is not transferred to the man, Siddiqui, who is Leader of the Opposition in Bihar Assembly, said.

Alright, Gurunath Meiyappan gets to spend two more days with the Mumbai police. His custody has been extended till May 31. 

Sports minister Jitendra Singh said there is a conflict of interest if Srinivasan continues to remain with the BCCI while the probe against his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan was on.

Days after the scandal broke, Singh said he has been forced to hang his head in shame due to the IPL spot-fixing scandal, which is becoming bigger and murkier with each passing day, insisting that a deterrent law could have prevented the credibility crisis that cricket is facing right now.

"It is very shameful. As a young person, as a sports fan, as the Sports Minister of the country, my head hangs in shame today," Jitendra told reporters.

And now, the sports ministry says BCCI president N Srinivasan should resign on moral grounds pending the outcome of the inquiry. So far, velcro Srini refuses to let go off his post. 

BCCI disciplinary committee member Jyotiraditya Scindia yesterday became the first BCCI office-bearer to openly call for Srinivasan's resignation, saying that propriety demanded that he should step down.

Union Minister and another senior board functionary Farooq Abdullah on the other hand backed the under-fire president, saying there was no reason for him to quit.

The clamour for the ouster of Srinivasan as the BCCI President has been growing for the last few days. He has, however, so far claimed innocence and contended that he had the full support of the board members.

Times Now reports that both Arun Jaitley (BCCI vice president) and Rajeev Shukla (IPL chairperson) had told N Srinivasan to consider stepping down the moment his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan was arrested in the spot-fixing scandal probe. Sections in the BCCI also want Srinivasan to go.
Meanwhile, Meiyappan has been taken to court as his custody ends today. The Mumbai police want an extension of his custody. 

Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt reporting from New Delhi says Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh has written a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi today, outlining the ground situation in Sukma district where the massacre took place on Saturday. 

Like a limpet, BCCI president N Srinivasan clings on to his post. Despite IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla advising him to step down till the probe against his son-in-law is over, Srinivasan rejects the advise, reports CNN IBN. BCCI vice-president Arun Jaitley had also asked Srinivasan to step down.

The cricket board has come out of the betting scandal as a toothless body with its focus on protecting its chief, the IPL and its chairman, not the sport, says Suresh Menon, Editor, Wisden India Almanack. Read 

In other news: Newsweek appears to be on the block again. According to sources who have been briefed, IAC is sending out inquiries to prospective buyers who may be interested in purchasing the 80-year-old title, which ended weekly publication of its domestic edition late last year in favor of an digital-only format. Read

Rajeev Shukla, IPL chairman, speaks to the press after meeting BCCI vice president Arun Jaitley. Shukla said the BCCI president N Srinivasan should step aside and stay away till the spot-fixing probe against his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan is over.

Shukla says that a probe panel has been formed and the panel's findings will be implemented and the guilty punished however big the person is. "Findings of the  commission will not be ratified by the BCCI, it will be implemented straightaway," said Shukla. This is the first time Rajeev Shukla has said Srinivasan should step aside.

Shukla tells the media that two high court judges and one BCCI official would be appointed in the three-member committee which will probe the IPL spot-fixing scandal.  He is expected to make further announcements at 12.30 pm.

Five dot balls. All attempts by reporters to get Mahendra Singh Dhoni to say something, anything about the ongoing spot-fixing and betting scandal at a press conference in Mumbai on Tuesday were met by smiles and silence, with a minder from the Board of Control for Cricket in India insisting that the five questions thrown at him be allowed to sail past without the Indian cricket captain putting bat to ball. Read

The ghastly ambush and murder of unarmed political leaders by Maoists in Chhattisgarh ought to focus the national discourse on the nature of the problem the India republic faces in the forested areas of Central India. Instead, the discourse is being distorted in two baleful directions.

First, into a partisan "Congress vs BJP' shouting match.
Second, and more dangerously, it is being purposefully led astray by arguments that position Maoist violence as a reaction to Salwa Judum, an anti-Maoist vigilante group whose leader, Mahendra Karma, was killed in the incidents.

Read

In other news: Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, and his wife Gursharan Kaur called on the Emperor and the Empress of Japan. Dr Singh who is on a three-day visit to Japan to strengthen bilateral strategic ties, yesterday said that Japan is the only partner with whom India have a two-plus-two dialogue at the foreign and defence ministry level. 

Mahendra Karma's autopsy report is out. The report says he had multiple stab wounds and bullet wounds. Today, BJP president Rajnath Singh will meet the families of the victims killed in Saturday's massacre. 

Minutes before Mahendra Karma's funeral, villagers of  Faraspal in Chattisgarh's Dantewada district brought a message from the Maoists -- they would not allow Karma's family to stay in Bastar and asked them to flee within a week. Read the full story here. 

The number of Naxal offensives in May during the past four years seems to point to a direct link between the increase in temperature and the frequency of the attacks, especially in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.

Experts say there is a logic behind the spurt in such violence during the pre-monsoon period: May is the preferred month as it falls right inthe middle of the Naxals' five-month (March-July) annual 'tactical counter offensive campaign' (TCOC). Read

For anti-Maoist crusader and Congress veteran Mahendra Karma, the last few minutes of his life must have been excruciatingly tortuous: a handful of hardened female combatants took turns to stab him 78 times, making sure they inflicted maximum pain before he met his end.The precise description of Karma's execution was provided by two shepherd boys to CRPF's elite CoBRA commandos. Read the full report on the TOI. 

Ram Parmar reports that over 15 people have been feared killed and 36 injured as a luxury bus collides with a tanker at Medvan Khind in Kasa, on the NH8 -- the Ahmedabad-Mumbai highway.

PTI adds: The collision between the private luxury bus and the tanker took place around 7 am, police said. Resident Deputy Collector Manoj Gohad said rescue operations have already been launched. "The disaster management machinery has been pressed into service and medical teams have been dispatched to the accident site," he said.

The injured were rushed to various hospitals around Dahanu, Additional Collector Ashok Shingare said, adding the critically injured were being shifted to hospitals in Mumbai.

Two more persons have been arrested in connection with the IPL spot-fixing scandal with police conducting searches for bookies in the case. 

CNN IBN reports:

A US drone targeted a house in Pakistan's lawless North Waziristan tribal region today, killing four persons in the first missile strike since the country's landmark general election on May 11. 

China will next week conduct its first "digital" technology military exercise, state media said on Wednesday, against growing concern in Washington and elsewhere about Chinese hacking attacks.

Noted lawyer and Rajya Sabha MP Ram Jethmalani has threatened to "expose" the "undesirable elements" within BJP and suggested that his expulsion from the party's primary membership was done because of his campaign against black money.

An American drone has crashed in Somalia, a US official said, after Shebab militants claimed to have recovered the wreckage. 

Police began questioning one of the prime suspects in the brutal murder of a British soldier in London, six days after the Islamist attack, following his release from hospital. 

Ahead of the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping next month, American national security adviser Tom Donilon has met the top Chinese leadership to discuss host of key issues like North Korea, cyber security and rebalance of the US in the Asia-Pacific region. 

The US has said it is not planning any new military effort involving the Syrian opposition, even as the Obama Administration has welcomed EU's decision to lifted the arms embargo on rebels. 

Around 1.5 lakh students in rural areas would be provided with Akash tablets from this session at a cost of Rs 110 crore, the Punjab government said today. 

Dailymail reports: A letter written by novelist Rudyard Kipling, in which he appears to admit he plagiarised part of one of his best known works has been unearthed.

ibnlive reports: A defiant Ram Jethmalani on Tuesday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party, which had expelled him earlier in the day, saying it was "bent upon committing suicide".