Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire in Arnia and R S Pura sub-sectors in Jammu region and in Kupwara district in Kashmir opening unprovoked firing at Indian forward posts that left a villager injured, BSF and army officials said today.

Pakistani soldiers resorted to heavy mortar shelling and firing targeting 15 to 20 border outposts and civilian areas in Arnia and R S Pura along the International Border in Jammu region at around 2130 hrs last night, A BSF officer said.

The BSF troops retaliated, triggering an intermittent exchange of fire which lasted till 0630 hrs this morning, he said. An elderly villager identified as Attar Singh was injured in the mortar shelling, the officer said.

Britain has moved past a strictly humanitarian mission in Iraq '" and the country's leader warned Monday that the effort won't be over any time soon.

Backed by US airstrikes, Iraqi and Kurdish forces on Monday wrested back control of the country's largest dam from Islamic militants, a military spokesman in Baghdad said, as fighting was reported to be underway for the rest of the strategic complex.

According to a ABP News-Nielsen opinion poll, it will be a close fight between the NDA and UPA in Bihar with 4 seats each in the assembly poll.

Censor Board chief Rakesh Kumar arrested for allegedly demanding money to certify a regional language film.

Bangladesh cabinet today approved a proposal to restore parliament's authority to sack Supreme Court judges, a move the opposition denounced as a precursor to one-party rule. 

Life in Telangana may come to a standstill tomorrow with the Government conducting a massive household survey across the newly-formed State to ascertain comprehensive information on the citizens, an exercise which has attracted criticism from certain quarters.

Ukraine claimed Monday that pro-Russia rebels fired rockets and mortars on a convoy of civilians who were trying to flee from the intense fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The National Judicial Appointments Commission will destroy the independence of the judiciary. The composition of its panel will inevitably lead to serious political manipulation. Read

First reactions to the cancelled Indo-Pak foreign secretary level meeting.
Kashmiri Separatist Leader Shabir Shah: What's the harm in meeting Pak High Commission? Vajpayee-ji held talks with us too.

Only path for Pakistan is resolve issues through peaceful bilateral talks under Shimla Agreement & Lahore Declaration: MEA

The MEA statement on the cancelled Indo-Pak secy level talks.

The MEA says: "The Pak High Commissioner's meeting with so called Hurriyat leaders undermined the constructive diplomatic arrangements made by PM Modi.

"At a time when serious initiative was taken to take bilateral ties forward, the invite to Hurriyat leaders raises questions about Pakistans sincerity.

"Our Foreign Secretary conveyed to the Pakistan High Command that Pakistans continued efforts to interfere in Indian internal affairs are unacceptable.

"Under present circumstances seems no useful purpose will be served by Foreign Secy visiting Islamabad, therefore visit stands cancelled."

India has called off foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan, says PTI. This comes after Pakistan envoy Abdul Basit's invitation to the separatist leaders from J&K "for consultations". 

The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan were to meet on August 25 in Islamabad to discuss a road map for dialogue, two years after secretary-level bilateral talks.

There have been 48 ceasefire violations -- 11 since August 8 -- from across the border in 2014 and observers feel that these are part of Pakistan army's game plan to scuttle the talks.

So, the Enforcement Directorate has finished questioning filmmaker, editor Aparna Sen in connection with the chit fund Saradha scam. Aparna Sen used to edit a magazine titled 'Paroma'  that was promoted by Sudipta Sen's Saradha Group. The filmmaker has said that she would cooperate with the ED.

The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan will meet on August 25 in Islamabad to discuss a roadmap for dialogue, two years after secretary-level bilateral talks.

There have been 48 ceasefire violations -- 11 since August 8 -- from across the border in 2014 and observers feel that these are part of Pakistan army's game plan to scuttle the talks.

"The Pakistan Army does not want peace talks with India. They, therefore, put pressure on their government. If the government does not listen, they try to do some mischief so that India is forced to call off talks.

"The continued ceasefire violations are a step towards that goal," claimed security and strategic analyst and former brigade commander, Brig Anil Gupta.

More problems in AAP?

Party senior leader Yogendra Yadav tweets: Shocked at reports about some volunteers demanding continuation of LG rule in Delhi. This is against the party, against Delhi and its people.

In the wake of the Pakistani high commissioner Abdul Basit's invitation to the separatist leaders from J&K "for consultations", the PMO has said that there is no change in the Indian government's stand on Kashmir. the MoS PMO said the government will take a structured view on talks with separatists and has taken note on the meetings and is keeping a close eye on developments. The RSS has condemned the meeting saying it was inappropriate for the Pakistan ambassador to meet Hurriyat leaders.

Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was invited by the Pakistan high commission for consultations in Delhi on August 19.

While it is not unusual for Pakistani officials to consult Hurriyat leaders ahead of any important India-Pakistan engagement, Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif chose not to meet the separatist leaders on his visit to India earlier this year for the swearing-in ceremony of PM Narendra Modi.

Doubting doctors, corrupt cops, jeering lawyers and, of course, mercenary reporters. A middle class woman gang raped in the heart of Mumbai makes for a perfect storm of anxiety and righteousness. But what if the rape survivor is also a journalist? A year after the Shakti Mills gang rape, a colleague of the survivor writes of their reluctant ringside view of the circus of such cases, and the stark lesson that the system will not spare you even if you're part of the system. Read

Iraqi security forces and Kurdish fighters today wrested back control of the country's largest dam from the hands of Islamic militants who captured it less than two weeks ago, an army spokesman in Baghdad said.

The development marks the first major victory for Iraqi and Kurdish troops since US airstrikes began earlier this month and could significantly boost their morale as they try to free territory overrun by the Islamic State group in a blitz this summer.

Delhi: Kashmiri Separatist Leader Shabir Shah reaches Pakistan High Commission

That's the image of the announcement of the birth of his daughter that Varun Gandhi tweeted today. The Gandhis have named her, Anasuya.

He came, he conquered, but did not quite like what he saw. On August 15, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held up a mirror to India and proceeded to tell us how things could change. On Rediff.com, a critique of the PM's I-day speech.

BJP MP from Sultanpur, Feroz Varun Gandhi and his wife Yamini Roy Chowdhury were blessed with a baby girl today. Gandhi tweeted the announcement today.

The couple were wed in 2011, at the Shri Kashi Kamkotishwar temple in Varanasi. The function had remained totally apolitical with no politician even from Bharatiya Janata Party present on the occasion. Neither was any of the Gandhis present. 

BJP MP Varun Gandhi and his wife Yamini Roy Chowdhury blessed with a girl.

In a breakthrough, scientists may have discovered a cure for a form of baldness after they found a drug which restored the hair of three patients within five months. Researchers at Columbia University Medical Centre  identified the immune cells responsible for destroying hair follicles in people with alopecia areata, a common autoimmune disease that causes hair loss. They report initial results from an ongoing clinical trial of an FDA-approved drug, which has produced complete hair regrowth in several patients with moderate-to-severe alopecia areata.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is paying an five-day official visit to Singapore from today. Banerjee is visiting the city state at the invitation of Singapore Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Law K Shanmugam. She is being accompanied by senior officials from the West Bengal government. Banerjee is scheduled to call on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong tomorrow, the Singapore Foreign Ministry said.

Assange has said that he may leave Ecuador soon, but hasn't said how soon. Assange has developed a life threatening heart defect and a chronic lung condition during his years confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in southwest London.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange holds a press conference at the Ecuadorian foreign ministry office now, and says he plans to leave the Ecuador embassy in London "soon" after two years of refuge. Assange was granted diplomatic asylum in Ecuador.

Assange, whose website WikiLeaks published classified US military and diplomatic documents, has been living inside the Ecuadorian embassy building since being granted diplomatic asylum by the Latin American nation in August 2012.

Britain wants to extradite him to Sweden under a European Arrest Warrant for questioning in relation to a sexual assault investigation. Australia-born Assange fears that from Sweden he will be extradited to the US, where he could face 35 years in prison for publishing classified documents related to the Pentagon's activities in Iraq and Afghanistan on WikiLeaks.

The NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex today scaled new record highs of 7,848.30 and 26,320.66 respectively in afternoon trade on the back of rally in banking, auto, capital goods and oil & gas sector stocks amid sustained capital inflows.

The 50-issue Nifty regained the psychological 7,800-level for the first time since July 25 by surging 56.60 points, or 0.72 per cent, to trade at an all-time high of 7,848.30, surpassing its previous intra-day high of 7,840.95 touched on July 25.

Our sources in Delhi tell us that Congress president Sonia Gandhi has a lunch date with President Pranab Mukjherjee today. Sonia met with Pranab to discuss the ongoing political situation, it is believed. She had met the president last month in the backdrop of the UPA pitching for Leader of Opposition (LoP) status for her party in Lok Sabha.

Hollywood superstar Richard Gere and supermodel-girlfriend Padma Lakshmi were spotted dining at a restaurant in New Jersey. The 64-year-old actor and Lakshmi, 43, who have kept their relationship low key, are going strong, reported the New York Post. "They kept to themselves, but they looked like a couple. She was giving him design tips," an onlooker said.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley is scheduled to visit the Indo Pakistan Border areas near Wagah in Amrtisar.

In his other responsibility as Finance Minister, Jaitley will also review drug smuggling with Revenue Officials. On the cards is a visit to the Golden Temple to offer prayers and special lunch with friends at his newly renovated bungalow in Amritsar which he bought early this year.

It is also his Parliamentary constituency. Attraction is Arun Jaitley will travel frquently to Amrtisar in the coming years. 

Sumitra Mahajan, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, has been flooded with requests from 500 MPs for inclusion of his or her name in the all-powerful Standing Committees.

Before the Winter Session of Parliament commences, 45 committees will be in force and the list is almost ready.

Mahajan wanted to consult the Leader of the Lok Sabha, Narendra Modi, and also Venkaiah Naidu -- Paliamentary Affairs minister -- before announcing the composition of the of the committees.

Mahajan does not hide the fact that 400 MPs were silent in debates during question hour, but 44 created a ruckus and adjourned the House.

People are watching how the majority of the House maintained a stoic silence while just 44 MPs managed to stall proceedings.

Some invitees to the Independence Day celebration overheard union HRD minister Smriti Irani discreetly enquiring about the seating arrangements in the VVIP enclosure. She asked seniors in President's Secretariat on the protocol of seats next to the President. She was not on the list and was asked to stay with VVIPs only and found to her consternation that there were not enough seats.

What upset her further was the sight of Arun Jaitley seated next to Rajnath Singh.

What the protocol book says is that the leader of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are permitted by Pranab Mukherjee to sit in a specific enclosure near him, while others have stay among 2500 other invitees. The matter was treated as closed, but not before the incident went viral.  

M Thambidurai's promotion as Deputy Speaker is likely land in legal litigation since he has continued as Propaganda Secretary of AIADMK and according to BJP circles this is a conflict of interest. There is buzz in Delhi circles that some MPs are keen to move a privilege motion in Parliament against Thambidurai if he continues as propaganda secretary.

These MPs quote Lok Sabha rule books and consequently, the AIADMK is in a tight spot. As a presiding officer, such conflict of interest will hinder justice inside the Lok Sabha.

There are two options -- Thambidurai may resign as Propaganda Secretary or the Jayalalithaa government may replace him as propaganda secretary.

Parents trapped with their families on a mountain by Islamic State militants are resorting to cutting themselves so their starving children can drink their blood. Read

UB Group Chairman Vijay Mallya has got another problem to deal with. After razing his ancestral bungalow, housed in an expansive 4.5-acres of prime location in the central business district of Bangalore, Mallya's attempt to unlock value in the land by building the luxury KingfisherTowers has been stalled.  Read

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has developed a life threatening heart defect and a chronic lung condition during his years confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in southwest London, according to a report.

43-year-old Assange is unable to get hospital treatment because he fears he will be arrested by police if he leaves the embassy, The Telegraph reported, citing his supporters.

Assange, whose website WikiLeaks published classified US military and diplomatic documents, has been living inside the Ecuadorian embassy building here, since being granted diplomatic asylum by the Latin American nation in August 2012. Britain wants to extradite him to Sweden under a European Arrest Warrant for questioning in relation to a sexual assault investigation.

Filmmaker Aparna Sen, who headed the magazine, Poroma, launched by the Saradha group, has been called in for questioning by the Enforcement Directorate. Sen was the executive editor of Saradha's magazine -- Poroma.

On August 16, the CBI conducted searches at 56 places, including the premises of BJD MLA Pravata Tripathy and owner of a local newspaper in Odisha, in connection with the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam.

Searches were carried out at as many as 54 places in Odisha and two in Mumbai by sleuths of the Central Bureau of Investigation which has claimed that they were looking for money trail in the case.

The prime minister, Narendra Modi, is the best orator in India. He has spent 90 days considering ways forward. He has very few experienced people in his party -- Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar and Rajnath Singh, whose experience as chief minister and later as cabinet minister was very brief. Lacking a majority in the Rajya Sabha is a limitation. Oratory cannot overcome the disadvantage of inadequate talent. Read

On the face of it, with an enabling amendment to the Constitution, and a law setting up the National Judicial Appointments Commission, the new procedure seems to have been set. Read

The Emergency came as a surprise to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who saw an atmosphere of fear in the country during which there were many "arbitrary arrests and detentions", says a new book on him by his daughter.

"Well, it was a surprise. There had been unrest, but nobody expected that Mrs Gandhi would go that far," Singh's daughter Daman Singh quotes him as saying in her book "Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan".

The book is based on Daman's conversations with her parents and hours spent in libraries and archives.

When his daughter asked him how the Emergency affected the government servants, Singh replied, "I think there was a lot more emphasis on punctuality, on discipline. So some good things happened. But I think the atmosphere in the whole country was one of fear. There were arbitrary arrests and detentions."

According to Singh, there was a "lot of unrest in the country, particularly due to the way the family planning programme - the sterilisation programme - was implemented in some of the northern states and in Delhi".

Broad-based buying led the benchmark BSE Sensex to recover 88.99 points in a volatile range-bound trade today. Heavy buying was seen in capital goods, oil & gas, consumer durables, banks, auto, power, metals and healthcare sector stocks as well as in mid-cap and small-cap companies.

Pakistani troops have fired at 20 Indian posts along the International Border in Jammu and Kashmir, in a spike in attacks a week before foreign secretary level talks between the two countries. Read

A wilful defaulter tag may force UB Group boss Vijay Mallya to quit the boards of India's largest alcoholic beverage companies, dealing a big blow to the tycoon whose jet-setting lifestyle once won him many young admirers. Read