Targeting the Election Commission, Janata Dal-U president Sharad Yadav today said that political parties are finding it difficult to reach out to their voters due to its functioning.

"The way the Election Commission is going...it has resulted in political parties facing problems in reaching out to the voters. If I get an opportunity, I will tell the Commission what a 'tamasha' (scenario) it has created," Yadav said addressing a poll meeting in support of the JD-U candidate, Yamshankar Yadav.

Taking a jibe at both the Congress as well as the BJP, he said, "There is no difference in their style of work as both are becoming fat by indulging in corruption."

Lashing out at the Centre for its "failure" in curbing inflation, especially the rising onion prices in the country, Yadav said, "It would be better if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be called as 'Mahangai' (inflation) Mohan Singh."

Holding the beedi industry responsible for the backwardness of the Bundelkhand region, Yadav said, " As per my knowledge, wherever beedi industry has flourished, that region has remained backward in terms of development."

Criticising the controversial self-styled godman Asaram Bapu, Yadav said that he should be put behind the bars.

Congress today said BJP will be forced to rethink its prime ministerial candidate if snooping allegations against former Gujarat minister Amit Shah were true and demanded a CBI inquiry into the issue.        

 

Shah was today accused of misusing his powers and police machinery for illegal surveillance of a young woman in 2009.        

 

"If these claims are true, it is a very serious allegation and BJP will be forced to rethink their PM candidate," Law Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters.        

 

"BJP accusing us of dirty tricks is expected, but this is what they did with Tehelka and Tarun Tejpal also. Why would a father want his daughter stalked? This issue has to be investigated," the senior Congress leader said.

Magnus Carlsen finally came upto expectations and beat Viswanathan Anand in the fifth game of the World Chess Championships in Chennai.  

 

Playing in white the Norwegian finally edged clear with seven rounds left.   The first four games had all ended in a stalemate.  

 

In fact the defending champion had dug himself out of a hole in the fourth game to earn what seemed an inspiring draw.   However, instead of carrying forward the advantage he let it slip.   It stands at 3-2 after five rounds.

The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj criticised the Congress today for not considering those spending Rs 32 and Rs 28 per day as poor and remarked that it doesn't know what poverty is.        

 

"Congress doesn't know what poverty is. They don't even consider those earning Rs 32 and Rs 28 per day as poor," Sushma said addressing a poll-rally in Manawar town in Dhar district from where Madhya Pradesh Women and Child Development Minister Ranjana Baghel is contesting the MP assembly polls.        

 

Praising MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's government, she said that in Madhya Pradesh the state government has framed schemes for people right from their birth until their death.        

 

She specifically highlighted a scheme for women labourers who get one-month maternity leave during which the state government takes care of their welfare.

Protesting against director Sanjay Leela Bhansali's movie Ram Leela's controversial content, Bajrang Dal workers today prevented cinema hall owners in Indore from exhibiting the movie.

"We have prevented nearly five cinema halls from showing 'Ram Leela' because of it's controversial content," Bajrang Dal's Indore division convener Sachin Baghel said.

Though the title of the film is 'Ram Leela', it has lot of "obscene" content, like Lord Hanuman dancing, which hurt Hindu sentiments, he said.

In response to the investigation of Gulail.com and Cobrapost, the father of the Gujarati woman is likely to issue a statement, our source tells us.

The woman was allegedly stalked by the Gujarat police on the instruction of Amit Shah, then minister of state for Home.

The father is likely to say that as a parent of a young girl, he had requested the Gujarat police to "keep watch" over his daughter.

The gravity of the offense, however, will not diminish. The woman is now married and lives in Mumbai and has a business.

David Cameron has become the first foreign leader to visit northern Sri Lanka since 1948, where he met leaders of the Tamil minority in the country.The Tamils' treatment at the end of the country's civil war dominated the run-up to the Commonwealth summit, which opened in the capital Colombo earlier.

China is to relax its policy of restricting most couples to have only a single child, state media say. In future, families will be allowed two children if one parent is an only child, says the Xinhua news agency. Read more

Audio tapes reveal the illegal surveillance of a young woman from Bangalore in 2009 ordered by Amit Shah for his "Saheb'. The police followed her inside malls, restaurants, gyms, even when she visited relatives, went to see her mother at a hospital, took a flight or checked into a hotel. Read more

The Solapur waiter took a loan to watch Tendulkar bat. Read

In his home city of Mumbai, Sachin Tendulkar is bringing to an end a career that has earned him god-like status in India. But how good are his batting stats compared with other top players? If we looked purely at cumulative runs scored then this article would be very short.  Read

Two days before Narendra Modi hits town for a mega rally in Bangalore, many posters have sprung up featuring former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa and Modi, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, together.

Yeddyurappa is a Modi fan, but he is no more part of the BJP, having split a year ago with his party of 40 years, to float his own political outfit, the Karnataka Janata Party, made up largely of BJP rebels. Read more

On Twitter: Tendulkar out at 74
Birthday on 24/4/74
24 years of career
Bats at no 4

Javed Akhtar tweets: 'Players will come and players will go but SACHIN THE GREAT will keep making centuries in our memory . Sachin's grand test career's grand total is 15847 runs . It is India's independence date . 15/8/47.'

In the face of pressure from the world community, Mohamed Waheed has stepped down as President of the Maldives on the eve of the second round of the country's controversy-ridden presidential polls.

Waheed, who took office after the first democratically elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, resigned under duress in February 2012, had been under pressure from India and western powers to step down after his tenure ended on November 10.

"What Manu has verbally communicated to me is that Sanjiv Goenka told him that because of Hartosh, I am making a lot of enemies.. .political enemies." Paranjoy Guha Thakurta talks to Hartosh Bal, Manu Joseph and Sanjiv Goenka. Read

US President Barack Obama has thanked London-based Indian steel baron Lakshmi Mittal for investing in recession-hit America and creating jobs, as he visited a key ArcelorMittal unit that is the largest supplier of steel to the auto sector in this country.

"I want to thank your CEO, Lakshmi Mittal, for investing in America and the Cleveland area," Obama said during his visit to the ArcelorMittal Cleveland Steel Factory in Cleveland, Ohio yesterday.

This year alone, the company has invested USD 70 million resulting in creation of 150 new jobs, Mittal said.

"It's a great honour for all of us at ArcelorMittal Cleveland to welcome President Obama said today. We've been making steel in Cleveland for one hundred years," he said in his welcome address.

On Twitter: A superstar fades, a star rises. Its the cycle of life! Congrats Rohit!! 

Rohit Sharma scored a double ton at Wankhede. Read the live commentary here.

As a hoax it's terrifying enough. If it's real it will likely keep you awake at night for a very long time... A user of the online image hosting service 'imgur' has posted pictures purporting to show a set of secret stairs hidden behind a bookcase, along with photographs suggesting someone may be living in his walls. Read

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decided against attending the CHOGM summit as he was pressed by "competing sentiments" in India about outstanding issues with Sri Lanka and domestic compulsions like polls in five states, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has said.

"I imagine a lot of things were factored in," Khurshid told CNN in an interview when asked why the Prime Minister did not attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo.

"We are now into five elections and important elections, the last round of elections before the general elections some time in the middle of next year. We are also handling some very, very critical economic issues including issues which are far-reaching reform issues, some of which will come before the next session of Parliament that's now a few weeks away," Khurshid said, explaining the reasons for Singh's absence at the summit.

'Designer vaginas': Unnecessary, harmful, and not to be offered to girls under age of 18, say experts. Read

A week after the Philippines typhoon, sickness, hunger and thirst have settled in with the sticky, humid heat and stench of rancid flesh hanging over the apocalypse the cyclone left behind. Traumatized survivors under improvised shelters watch over bodies of husbands, wives and children who perished and are rotting in the sun. Read

Deepika and Ranveer wax eloquent on Sachin. Watch

Twenty six years after Sachin Tendulkar performed as a ball boy at the Wankhede Stadium, his son Arjun was today seen on the ground doing the same duty in the legendary batsman's farewell Test here.

Arjun (14), who was part of Mumbai's under-14 squad last year, was on the ground when the cricket legend was batting in his landmark 200th Test and also when he was caught at slips by Darren Sammy off Narsingh Deonarine.

Sachin Tendulkar scored 74 off 118 balls, in what could probably be his last innings for India.

Interestingly, Tendulkar had performed the job of a ball boy at the age of 14 during the India versus Zimbabwe match during the 1987 World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made for the rally of BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in Bangalore on November 17 with some 5,000 personnel being mobilised for the event, as the party seeks to boost its prospects with "Modi magic" for the Lok Sabha polls.

"Ten DCPs, 25 ACPs, 100 police inspectors, 250 sub inspectors, 300 assistant sub inspectors and 3,000 head constables and constables, 800 homeguards and 500 civil defence personnel, will be deployed for the rally," Bangalore Commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar said.

All necessary precautions have been taken in other sensitive areas of the city by police who have arrested some "bad elements" with suspected potential to create problems, he said. "In last 15 days, we have interrogated 1,200 bad elements and warned them," Auradkar added.

LJP president Ramvilas Paswan today said he fails to understand why Congress is "dithering" to join the RJD-LJP alliance which is intact in spite of sentencing of Lalu Prasad.

"We (RJD-LJP) have been saying that we the secular parties should come together to beat BJP and JD(U) in Bihar ... But I do not know why Congress is dithering," Paswan said. Asked if Congress' tilt towards JD(U) of Nitish Kumar could be the reason, Paswan said "Only they (Congress) can answer this."

If the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) opening in Colombo today had a prize for "special mention' in dealing with the intricacies of the Tamil problem that has bedevilled the summit, it ought to go to foreign secretary Sujatha Singh.

She made the best of a bad situation that domestic politics has placed India in at the CHOGM, and her meeting today with veteran Sri Lankan Tamil politician R Sambanthan was evidence that diplomacy may salvage at least a part of what electoral compulsions had sought to entirely destroy. Read

Reliance Life Insurance has signed Sudhir Kumar Chaudhary who has been present at almost all matches played by Sachin Tendulkar and is known as one of his greatest fans, as part of its CSR activities.

Chaudhary is usually seen with his body painted in the tri-colour, waving the national flag and blowing conch shell during the cricket matches.

The insurance company will offer financial aid to Chaudhary to help him continue with his passion of loving cricket after Tendulkar retires.

Reliance Life said it would have a four year tie-up with Chaudhary to help him secure his future and continue with his passion for the sport.

On Twitter:
Sunil Gavaskar 348 mts, 25834 runs (ave 51.46), 100s: 81
Sachin Tendulkar 310 mts, 25396 runs (ave 57.84), 100s: 81

An Indian-origin doctor, accused of manslaughter of several patients in Australia, is likely to walk free after prosecutors today dropped all criminal medical negligence charges against him, ending his long-running legal woes. Jayant Patel, 63, did not react when he was formally discharged from the indictments in the Supreme and District courts in Brisbane.

In which Aamir Khan pays tribute to Sachin. Watch

He is on the wrong side of 40 now, well past his sporting prime. He has played at the highest level for a quarter of a century but his competitive form has slipped over the last two or three years.

He was once the best in the world; today even the uninformed fan can name half a dozen players who rank higher.

The tawdry, politically-riven governing body of his sport has done him the service of organizing a home series for what is likely to be his last great contest.

His contemporaries, mostly retired now, are respectful (as who wouldn't be, given his extraordinary achievements and the length of his reign at the top) but they are increasingly willing to say that his time is up, that in this new era younger men ought to carry the torch.

Mukul Kesavan on Sachin Tendulkar. Read

Finance Minister P Chidambaram has compared industrialist Ratan Tata with Sachin Tendulkar, saying men like that never retire.

Chidambaram was speaking at an event in Mumbai, where he presented Mr Tata with the first CII President's award. Mr Tata is the chairman emeritus of the over $100 billion Tata Group.

"When I walked into the room I realized Mr Tata is as big as Sachin," Chidambaram said, referring to the cricketing legend who is playing his last test match at the city's Wankhede Stadium.

"Men like Ratan don't retire. They just move on to doing different things," said the minister.

If you thought that Robert De Niro had mellowed in his old age, think again. His new film with Luc Besson is feistily violent and he still hankers after making a sequel to Taxi Driver. Read

Also read: When Ranbir Kapoor kissed Robert De Niro's knee

In a message to the investigative authorities, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today asked them not to question all decisions as the business cannot survive if everything is treated as "motivated or malicious".

"No business can survive and person can take a decision if every decision is questioned as motivated or malicious," he said, while assuring the bankers that government will protect them for bonafide decisions keeping in view the prevailing facts and circumstances.

"Some of these decisions in retrospect after lapse of few years may turn out to be poor decisions, he said, adding "but if authorities begin to question every decision and attribute a motive and attribute criminal intent and describe it as a crime, I think that would be most dangerous decision that authorities can take. I would strongly advise that is not the approach to adopt".

He said this while addressing Bancon 2013, a conference of the bankers and economists in Mumbai.

A week after a young lawyer blogged that the Supreme Court judge she was interning for had sexually harassed her, another woman who worked for the same judge has reportedly made a similar claim on Facebook. Read more

Shobhaa De tweets: The moment Rahul Gandhi was spotted by the Wankhede crowd, the chant changed from Sachin! Sachin! to Modi! Modi! Telling or plain scary?

Narendra Modi in Chhattisgarh: If Rahul Gandhi says he wants to change the system, I want to ask, who put these systems in place for the last 60 years? Who made them? And who spoiled them?

"Shehzade, your father, your grandmother, your grandfather put these systems and destroyed them for vested  interests."

Modi may get self-righteous at the Chhattisgarh rally today but his comments yesterday hit the nadir of poor taste when he said, "Madam, you are ill. Let the shehzada (prince) take over. And let's see then if he can deliver round-the-clock electricity to Chhattisgarh."

The Congress has demanded an apology from the BJP leader. "We know Modi himself has no limits of decency, but he should at least think of the dignity of the party which has made him its PM candidate and apologise for the low level remarks," Congress spokesman Meem Afzal said.

More on the Chhattisgarh rally.

Modi tells people that their love for the BJP has brought them here despite the scorching heat. "We won't forget it. We will pay you back by developing this state. Remember, Raman and Lotus. Congress doesn't stand a chance in this state. Congress doesn't have time to spare for Delhi, or the country.

"Desh bechne wale se accha hai chai bechne wala. Is it a crime to be poor? Is it a crime to have poor parents? Is it a crime to sell tea to fill your stomach? What kind of mentality is this?"

Narendra Modi is addressing a rally at Raigarh in Chhattisgarh. He is scheduled to hold four rallies in the state. The second phase of polling is on Monday.

Modi takes on the SP, saying that a prime minister who sold tea is better than a PM who sells the country. "The people will decide whether a tea seller can be a PM," he said and added that the Congress is surviving because of the media's benevolence to it.

He said when Lata Mangeshkar praised him the Congress wanted her Bharat Ratna to be taken back. "They are dictators," he says.

A 16-year-old girl was allegedly repeatedly raped by her classmate and two of his friends for months in west Delhi's Shalimar Bagh, police said on Thursday.

"The girl, a student of Class XI of a school in Shalimar Bagh was first raped by her classmate in March. He then blackmailed her into having sexual relations with his friends by threatening to reveal about the incident to others," said a police official.

After months of abuse, the girl finally gathered courage and revealed the incident to her family who later approached police. One of the accused has been arrested, and two others are missing.-- NDTV

While it is apparent that due process has been subverted to the advantage of a few by the political executive, it is equally true that there has been some politicisation of the civil service. Read

Prime Minister David Cameron could not help but speak about the timing of his presence in Calcutta.

"The Little Master is about to go to bat in his final Test match and it is good to celebrate that. And as I must support my team, I have to say I am relieved when he will not be playing!" Cameron said at IIM Calcutta.

He echoed the view on an All India Radio interview: "As a Brit, obviously, a little part of me is relieved that we are not going to see him make all the centuries.' Read more

Confident of achieving 5 to 5.5 per cent growth in the current fiscal, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said the green shoots are visible and measures taken by the government will help the economy achieve the potential growth rate of 8 per cent.

Andy Warhol loved it -- so do conspiracy theorists the world over. But how exactly did Abraham Zapruder's fuzzy home movie of the Kennedy assassination 50 years ago became one of the great cultural icons of our time. Read

Two passengers were killed and 37 others injured when ten coaches of a train derailed at Ghoti near Igatpuri in Nashik district this morning.

The mishap took place at around 6.20 am today when 12618 Nizamuddin-Ernakulam Lakshadeep Mangala Express train was passing through the Ghoti-Igatpuri section, about 35 kms from Nashik.

The Central Railway has set up a helpline number for anxious relatives and kin of the Mangala Express passengers, which derailed near Nashik. Aa medical relief van has already reached Ghoti.

Following the mishap, rail-traffic on the up side was affected, forcing railway authorities to cancel various trains, including Manmad-Kurla-Godavari Express and Manmad-Mumbai Panchavati Express and Manmad-Pune Rajya Rani Express.

Inflation as measured by the wholesale price index soared to an eight-month high of 7% year-on-year in October on the back of spiralling vegetable prices, raising the prospect of an increase in interest rates when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reviews monetary policy mid-December. Read

As high as a 20-storey building from keel to mast, India's "floating fighting city' will also be one of its single largest consumers. The INS Vikramaditya is to be finally commissioned by defence minister A.K. Antony's wife -- in keeping with the naval tradition of women commissioning vessels -- at the Sevmash Shipyard at Severodvinsk in north Russia on Saturday. Read

Many survivors of the Volvo bus mishap couldn't stop thanking 23-year-old Pune-based techie Prashanth Pandey who gave them a new lease of life by breaking open a window pane with his head to help them escape the burning bus. Prashanth, an employee of an MNC in Pune, had come to Bangalore on personal work and boarded the bus to go back home. Read

When Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in an American drone strike, Pakistan's government did not breathe a sigh of relief, it reacted with grief and shock. This despite the fact that Mehsud was responsible for the deaths of many innocent Pakistanis.

The Indian Navy, which already has 136 warships, aims to induct 200 more such ships in the next ten years.

Sachin Tendulkar, or rather the fondness for the finest cricketer of his generation, was one of the few factors that united all sections of an an otherwise divisive Indian society, believes Ramchandra Guha.

The Indian currency may be on a downward spiral, but somewhere far, far away, another Rupee is reaching new heights.

Five people were killed and 50 others injured when the Mangala Lakshadweep Express derailed near Ghoti in Maharashtra.

US President Barack Obama has announced his intention to nominate Indian-American Dr Vivek Hallegere Murthy as his next Surgeon General. 

US President Barack Obama has thanked London-based Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal for investing in America and creating jobs in the country. 

Acknowledging that he is not a perfect man and would not be a perfect president, US President Barack Obama today asserted that he would have to work hard to address some of the challenges that his administration has been facing of late, including the drop in his popularity.

"You know, there are going to be ups and downs during the course of my presidency. I think I said early on when I was running, I am not a perfect man and I will not be a perfect president, but I'll wake up every single day working as hard as I can on behalf of Americans out there from every walk of life who are working hard, meeting their responsibilities but sometimes are struggling because the way the system works isn't giving them a fair shot," Obama said.

"And that pledge I haven't broken. That commitment, that promise continues to hold; the promise that I wouldn't be perfect, number one, but also the promise that as long as I've got the honour of having this office, I'm just going to work as hard as I can to make things better for folks," Obama told reporters at a White House news conference.

Tribal teacher Soni Sori and her activist-nephew Lingaram Kodopi were released from Jagdalpur jail today after the Supreme Court granted them bail following their arrest two years ago for allegedly receiving money on behalf of Maoists from a corporate house in Chhattisgarh.

"The Supreme Court gave conditional bail to Sori and Kodopi on November 12 and we received the order today, after which which we released them," Jagdalpur Jail Superintendent Rajendra Gaikwad told PTI.

According to Bastar Additional Superintendent of Police SR Salaam, the duo were taken to Dantewada where they were given permission to spend 24 hours with their family, after which they will be taken to New Delhi on Friday where they have to report to the police station on a weekly basis.

The bail has been given on the condition that they would not visit Chhattisgarh while their case is being probed,Salaam said.

In a veiled retaliatory attack on BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for his 'khooni panja' (killer paw) remarks, Congress leader Beni Prasad Verma today said the country has to be saved from a 'khooni insan' (murderous person).

Without naming Modi, Verma said while the ElectionCommission is looking into the remarks made by the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, "There is a need to save the countryfrom a murderous person."

The Union minister was asked whether Modi's remarks were correct

Modi had, in a November 7 speech at a rally in Rajnandgaon (Chhattisgarh), asked the people if they wanted to vote for a 'khooni panja', an apparent reference to Congress election symbol.

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