Islamic State extremists lined up and shot dead at least 50 tribesmen and women in Iraq's Anbar province, officials said Saturday, the latest mass killing committed by the group.

Businessman Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, today angrily pushed away the mic of a reporter when he was asked about his land deals.

A national level Karate player was allegedly beaten up by a group of men last evening in North Delhi's Burari area when she thrashed one of them for purportedly molesting her. 

Afghanistan's cosmopolitan new first lady has backed France's controversial ban on the niqab, comparing the full veil to "blinders" as she prepares to campaign for more respect for women in her conservative adopted homeland. 

Federal accident investigators arrived Saturday to begin a probe into the cause of an accident that destroyed a prototype space tourism rocket ship during a test flight, killing one pilot and injuring another.

A 35-year-old Indian-origin shopkeeper was shot dead by robbers at his shop in Manchester in the UK, police said. Pragaret Singh, a father of three young children, was killed when he confronted two robbers who attacked him as he closed his shop for the night. 

Britain has scrambled RAF fighter jets for a second time this week after at least one Russian Bear bomber approached UK airspace. The Ministry of Defense said today that RAF Typhoons based at Lossiemouth in Scotland intercepted the aircraft yesterday. 

A major fire broke out at the Army office located on the first floor of the Pune railway station building here this evening. Assistant divisional fire officer Ramesh Gangad said the ceiling of the office caught fire at about 7 this evening. 

Bangladesh was hit on Saturday by a major power outage that brought much of normal life to a standstill, forced hospitals and garment factories to rely on back-up generators and even plunged the prime minister's official residence into darkness.

Pakistan army and rangers have been deployed to provide security to Muharram processions in different parts of Punjab province in the wake of intelligence reports that some anti-Shia outfits may target them.  

The Russian government's communications watchdog has issued a warning to a top independent radio station over a program about Ukraine. 

Attacking Sharad Pawar for offering outside support to BJP government in Maharashtra, Samajwadi Party leader Abu Asim Azmi today alleged the move was intended to keep under wraps the NCP leader's "corrupt dealings". 

A man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said more than 200 girls kidnapped by the group six months ago had been "married off" to its fighters, contradicting Nigerian government claims they would soon be freed.

 A day after announcing that he will not be fighting assembly polls from family bastion Ganderbal, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said people of all constituencies of the state were equally dear to him in his "mission to serve sincerely and equitably". 

The ruling National Conference (NC) today welcomed the Supreme Court's move over relaxation of the Model Code of Conduct in poll-bound Jammu & Kashmir to remove any hindrance in government's relief and rehabilitation work, saying it vindicated the party's stand. 

The UK has warned its citizens travelling abroad that they could be targeted by terrorists seeking revenge for British air strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants in the Middle East. 

Modi @ BJP membership drive:

BJP aims at enrolling 50 lakh new members to the party.  Modi has enrolled himself as the online member of the BJP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived at the BJP HQ to begin the party's membership drive. 

The principal and the head of management of the school where an eight-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by her 63-year-old teacher has been arrested.

K Anurag reports from Guwahati

China today passed a law mandating parents to follow the convention of naming their children after their relatives from bloodlines, in an apparent move to discourage trends of adopting fashionable or unorthodox names.

A legislative interpretation passed by China's legislature the National People's Congress said citizens must use parents' surnames in principle, but can choose other surnames such as those of lineal relatives, those of foster-parents or other surnames for "rational reasons", state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

People from ethnic minorities can name themselves based on their own custom. The interpretation was based on two articles in the general principles of the Civil Law and the Marriage Law, which stipulate that all Chinese citizens have the right to name; a surname can be that of either parent, the report said.

However, there are many cases of people who do not follow the convention, resulting in disputes and refusal by police to register newborns.

Toughening his stance against the Congress high command, former Union Shipping Minister G KVasan today gave ample indications of breaking away from the party and reviving the erstwhile Tamil Maanila Congress.   

"I will announce my next plan of action on November 3," he told reporters after holding consultations for the second day with his supporters, which included former MLAs Vellore Gnanasekaran and Vidiyal Sekar.    

Raising the 'Valamana Tamilagam, Valimayana Bharatham' (prosperous Tamil Nadu, vibrant India) slogan coined during the founding of Tamil Maanila Congress in 1996 by his father GK Moopanar, Vasan left none in doubt about his next plan.    

"In Tamil Nadu, the movement (the Congress) can be strengthened only by invoking the legacy of Kamaraj and Moopanar," he said in an obvious reference to the tussle with the high command over the issue of membership cards.   

He and his supporters like Gnanadesikan, who quit as TNCC chief had alleged that the high command had not allowed themto use images of Kamaraj and Moopanar in the cards.    

The high command has, however, denied this.

Inception director Christopher Nolan will not be visiting India in December to attend IIT's cultural festival, the college has announced five days after it declared he will attend the event.

IIT had announced on various social platforms that the British director, who has a huge fan following in India with his films like Insomnia, Batman trilogy,

Inception and upcoming space drama Interstellar, will speak at Mood Indigo's Illuminati programme. The college took to Facebook to share the news and expressed its regret for previous announcement.

"We sincerely apologise for all the confusion surrounding our tribute to Nolan. Mood Indigo's tweet and Facebook post (27th October) of announcing Nolan's presence at the MI 2014 was incorrect. We regret the announcement and the consequent social media outbreak," read a post on the festival's official Facebook page.

Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh today stirred a controversy by saying that time has come for Rahul Gandhi to take charge of the party from his mother Sonia Gandhi, a statement that was described as his "personal views" by the party.

"It's a general feeling of Congress workers that the Congress has always encouraged younger people to lead the party. Therefore, now I think the time has come when Rahul Gandhi should take charge," Singh told reporters.

Asked about the recent Lok Sabha and assembly elections losses suffered by the party, he said one should also take into account the wins between 2004 and 2014.

Reminded of his earlier remarks about leadership capabilities of the Congress vice president, Singh said, "Please revisit my statement. I had said Rahul Gandhi does not hanker after power unlike Mr Modi who cannot live and breathe without power."

Newly-appointed Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis plans to develop his office on the lines of that of the prime minister to ensure faster and efficient working of his administration.   

"I am in the process of developing the office of the chief minister on the lines of the Prime Minister's Office where a set of select bureaucrats assist the ministers in case they are not able to carry out certain tasks," Fadnavis told reporters today, a day after being sworn-in as the state's first BJP CM.   

The strengthening of the CMO will remove the bottlenecks and pendency of work would be reduced when bureaucrats enter the scene to help ministers, he said.   

On the demand for abolition of local body tax, Fadnavis said he was contemplating introduction of turnover tax on VAT.

Four rebel Janata Dal-United MLAs were today disqualified as members of the Bihar assembly on a charge of working against the party during the recent by-polls to two Rajya Sabha seats in the state.

Speaker Udai Narain Chaudhary handed over his ruling to the MLAs concerned, one of the disqualified MLAs Gyanendra Singh Gyanoo told reporters after coming out of the Speaker's chamber.

The four MLAs whose membership were annuled are Gyanoo (Barh), Neeraj Singh Babloo (Chhatapur), Ravindra Rai (Mahua) and Rahul Sharma (Ghosi). They were charged with going against the party in the by-polls to two Rajya Sabha seats in the state in June this year and working as proposers and polling agents of rebel candidates Anil Sharma, a real estate baron, and expelled JD-U leader Sabir Ali.

After the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress leaders are now leading a march in West Bengal's Birbhum. They have broken police barricades at entry points to the village where restrictions have been imposed after three people were killed in clashes on Monday.

Yesterday, BJP leaders including Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi  were arrested after tried to enter the Majra village -- the site of clashes between alleged supporters of the BJP and the state's ruling Trinamool Congress -- where prohibitory orders are in place.

One BJP and two Trinamool supporters died and nearly a dozen were injured on Monday during clashes in which bombs and guns were fired.

Footage showed armed assailants running through paddy fields and firing guns indiscriminately. Several people suffered bullet injuries; many houses were also set on fire.

The area had been tense since last week, when a police party was attacked with bombs, sticks and bricks at a nearby village. The police team had gone there following reports of bombs hidden at a health centre. 

 The Kerala government today dismissed as false allegations of corruption levelled by bar owners against the state Finance Minister K M Mani over reopening closed bars and ruled out any probe into the matter.   

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said the charges were "totally baseless" after the working president of Kerala Bar Owners Association and a bar owner Biju Ramesh alleged in a section of the media that Mani had taken Rs 1 crore and demanded Rs 5 crore to reopen 418 closed bars.   

"I am very sure that the allegation is totally baseless and so there is no need for any probe. I am fully confidentab out this", Chandy said.   

Chandy termed the charges against Mani as "unfortunate" and said people would not believe this kind of charge against the minister, whose political life "is an open book and not behind an iron curtain." 

He denied the charge of Ramesh that he had raised the issue of some of his cabinet colleagues demanding bribe during a meeting with him and asserted that no such meeting had taken place and that he had also not met the person concerned.

Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan and his estranged wife Sussanne Khan were today granted divorce by a family court in Mumbai, nearly a year after the star couple announced end of their marriage.

"The court has granted divorce to both of them. It was a divorce by mutual consent," Hrithik's lawyer Mrunalini Deshmukh told PTI.

Hrithik and Sussanne, who tied the knot 14 years ago and have two children, approached the court in April this year and filed an application for separation by mutual consent.

The consent terms related to the divorce were not immediately available. On December 14 last year, the couple, one of the most popular Bollywood personalities, had called off their marriage.

In a statement, the 40-year-old actor had said Sussanne decided to walk out of their 13-year-old marriage. In a separate statement, Sussanne had called the split "our own individual choices."

Just in: Twelve people are feared dead as a boat capsized in the Garhi Dam in Bihar's Jamui District.

Six bodies have been recovered so far. Rescue teams have rushed to the spot, CNN-IBN reports.

More details are awaited.      

A retired Indian Army lieutenant general is part of a 14-member high-level panel appointed by United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon to assess the current and future needs of the world body's peacekeeping architecture.

Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha is currently a member of the United Nations department of peacekeeping operations/ department of field support panel of experts on technology.

Prior to this, Guha served as the first interim director of the office for peacekeeping strategic partnerships and before that as the deputy military advisor on the department of peacekeeping operations.

UN Secretary-General Ban said the new blue ribbon high-level independent panel on peace operations would "draw together individuals with a wide range of experience and expertise," and be chaired by Nobel laureate and journalist Jose Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste.

The Maharashtra governor had given the new BJP government 15 days to hold a trust vote. Its the deadline expires on November 15.

And its former ally Shiv Sena has too demanded an answer even as efforts are on the mend the severed ties.  

The Sena says they have told the BJP that they must decide on an alliance -- one way or another -- before the vote of confidence, NDTV reports. Unless there is an agreement before November 15, the Sena says they will not support the government.

Read the full report here

Left fuming by the West Indian cricketers' mid-series pullout because of a pay dispute with their board, the BCCI has slapped a damages claim of Rs 250 crore ($42 million) on the West Indies Cricket Board.

West Indies cricket plunged into an unprecedented crisis following the decision of the team to discontinue its India tour after the fourth ODI in Dharamsala.

The BCCI's damages claim could bring the bankrupt West Indies Cricket Board down to its knees. "I have sent a letter to the WICB claiming damages to the tune of Rs 250 crore. I have already sent them the letter demanding the compensation for pulling out of the bilateral series despite repeated requests and assurances of helping them out," BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel told PTI today.

After the five-match ODI series, the visitors were scheduled to play in a one-off T20 match at Cuttack followed by Tests at Hyderabad, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. It has been learnt that the BCCI has given the WICB about two weeks to come up with a compensation plan failing which the Caribbean Board will have lawsuit.

E V K S Elangovan was appointed the new chief of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee with the party accepting the resignation of B S Gnanadesikan, who was upset over his "neglect" by the All India Congress Committee.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has appointed Elangovan to the post, Congress General Secretary and in-charge of Tamil Nadu Mukul Wasnik announced.

Elangovan had served as TNCC chief earlier and was a minister of state in UPA-I.

Gnanadesikan had quit as president of the party's Tamil Nadu unit on October 30. "The state president does not have respect and powers," he had said, citing several instances belittling his role in the affairs of the party to buttress his point.

The Shiv Sena has a message for Maharashtra's new chief minister as he takes charge today.  

The Bharatiya Janata Party's former ally cautioned Devendra Fadnavis against taking people for granted and asked him to fulfill the  expectations of the common man. 

"The new government is like a newly-wed woman who initially pleases her mother-in-law. In this case the mother- in-law is the people of Maharashtra. You cannot take people for granted. They have the power to pull your ears when you err," an editorial in Sena mouthpiece Saamana said today. 

This is the first lesson the new government will have to learn, the Sena said amid signs of a rapprochement between the saffron parties, who parted ways on September 25, weeks ahead of the assembly polls, which saw BJP emerging as the single largest party in the state.

The Maharashtra governor had given the BJP 15 days to hold a trust vote. The BJP has 123 seats; it needs 22 more to win the vote. The Sena has 63.

The NCP has offered external support to the BJP, but the latter will be wary to accept or count on it. 

The new Bharatiya Janata Party government in Maharashtra takes charge today.

Devendra Fadnavis, BJP's first CM in the state, will hold his first cabinet meet at 11 am today.

The cabinet will decide on dates to hold a special session to prove majority. Fadnavis heads a minority government and has to prove his strength on the floor of the assembly within 15 days.

The BJP is in talks with the Shiv Sena to renew the 25-year alliance they snapped in September. The NCP has offered external support to the BJP, but the latter will be wary to accept or count on it. 

China today successfully completed its first return mission to the moon with its unmanned orbiter landing back on Earth, becoming only the third country in the world to do so after the former Soviet Union and the US accomplished the feat about 40 years ago.

In the latest step forward for its ambitious space programme, the test lunar orbiter landed in Siziwang Banner of China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region early this morning over a week after it was launched to test its ability to go to the lunar orbit and return to Earth.

Search teams recovered the orbiter at the designated landing area, about 500 kilometres away from Beijing, state- run Xinhua news agency reported.

The BJP will launch a national membership drive starting today with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who will enroll himself as the first member of the party at the BJP headquarters in Delhi.

The drive, which will continue till March 31 2015, is aimed at enrolling four times the existing party workers in all states.  "We would like to break all records in terms of our membership drive throughout India this time.

The membership drive will be launched at our central party office tomorrow and will continue till March 31, 2015. The membership will be for six years," BJP National General Secretary JP Nadda Nadda said yesterday.

Karnataka gets a birthday gift as it turns 68 today. Bangalore is now officially Bengaluru and Mysore is Mysuru

Twelve major towns and cities in the state revert to their old Kannada names today after the Centre cleared a proposal made by the state nine years ago.

The state had sought the Centre's clearance for the change in names in 2006, reports NDTV. 

BBC reports: A judge in the US has ruled in favour of a nurse fighting a state quarantine order since returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa.

Judge Charles LaVerdiere ruled Kaci Hickox did not need to be isolated or restricted in her movements because she is not showing symptoms of the virus.

Image: Nurse Kaci Hickox speaks with the media next to her boyfriend Ted Wilbur (not pictured) outside their home in Fort Kent, Maine. Photograph: Joel Page/Reuters

Read the full story here

From Business Standard: New Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday announced his government would bring in the Right to Services Bill and introduce a citizens' charter so that the common man will get services in a time-bound manner.

Read the full story here

From IBNLive: India has pledged Rs five million as immediate relief for victims of landslide in Sri Lanka and is also considering medium and long-term assistance.

"India has pledged as immediate relief assistance of Rs 50 lakh for the victims of landslide in Sri Lanka," the spokesperson in the ministry of external affairs said.

Read the full story here

From ABC News: While on the Opie Radio show this week to promote his new series Mike Tyson Mysteries, the former boxing champ revealed some startling news.

While talking about the perception people have about him as one of the greatest boxers in history, Tyson mentioned past sexual abuse. The radio show's host followed up by asking the champ how old he was when this happened."I was a little kid, 7," he said. "[It was] an old man, yeah. One time."

Read the full article here

Pakistan police today said they have arrested two members of outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban allegedly involved in the deadly attack on slain former premier Benazir Bhutto's convoy in 2007.

The arrests were made during an operation in Karachi's Garden area. According to SP CID Usman Bajwa, the arrested suspects were involved in the deadly October 18 attack on Karsaz road.

"We have also arrested a target killer who has confessed to killing 20 people," he said. The arrested persons have made some important disclosures about the attack on October 18, Bajwa said.

From the NYT: Blaise Compaor, president of the poor, landlocked nation Burkina Faso, announced Friday that he had resigned, forced from office by violent street protests and the burning of the Parliament building 27 years after he seized power as an army captain in a coup.

Image: Burkina Faso's military chief General Honore Traore speaks at a news conference announcing his takeover of power, at army headquarters in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso. Photyograph: Joe Penney/Reuters

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From Gizmodo: Virgin Galactic is reporting that there has been an 'in-flight anomaly' aboard SpaceShip Two.

The status of the the two pilots is unknown. The suborbital flight took off at 9:19am PDT from the Mojave Air and Spaceport in California.

Read the full story here