German authorities think they 'have thwarted an Islamist attack', and a married couple has been arrested in a town near Frankfurt in connection with the case, the interior minister for the German state of Hesse told media persons.

The railways has made free transportation of relief materials for earthquake affected people in Nepal.

President Barack Obama today nominated Gayle Smith as the Administrator of USAID and if confirmed by the Congress she would replace Indian-American Raj Shah as the head of the American aid agency.

A Pakistani national was killed in firing by BSF after he entered into the Indian territory from across the border in Basantar belt of Samba district in Jammu and Kashmir today.

Petrol price hiked by Rs 3.96 a litre and diesel by Rs 2.37 a litre, effective from midnight tonight.

Former CAG Vinod Rai today said the big-ticket corruption scandals are a thing of the past and the recent auction of coal blocks and spectrum stand a "test of transparency".

The Ministry of External Affairs has responded to US panel's report that Indian minorities have been subjected to forced conversions and violent attacks under the new governments rule and at the hands of groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. 

The Indian Army along with its Nepalese counterpart today rescued 84 Indians trapped in various parts of earthquake-hit Nepal.             

With more than 10,500 Indians back home by road, foreigners stranded in Nepal, are also opting for the road route to India and then home, reports Sharat Pradhan/Rediff.com reports from Sunauli on the Indo-Nepal border.


The Indian immigration office at Sunauli, the main gateway to India for anyone taking the road route out of Kathmandu, recorded an entry of as many as 385 foreign nationals. These included citizens from the United Kingdom, United States, China, Germany, France, Spain, Russia, Romania, Israel and Korea.


Read the full story on Rediff.com shortly.

The Indian military's swift evacuation of thousands of Indians from quake-hit Nepal has put China's PLA on the defensive with questions raised as to why its efforts to rescue stranded Chinese nationals did not match that of India.


The media here has questioned why air force planes were not deployed to airlift over 8,000 Chinese many of whom are still stranded in Nepal.


In a rare comparison of India's military with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the world's largest, Chinese defence spokesman Geng Yansheng was today confronted with the question at a briefing as to why the military did not use planes to airlift stranded Chinese when India had done so to ferry its nationals.

Lok Sabha passes Finance Bill, 2015, by a voice vote. The bill was passed with 41 amendments and six clauses.


The Finance Bill 2015 was tabled in the Parliament today and contains the government's tax proposals for the fiscal FY16.


Speaking in the lower house, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today defended his Finance Bill and gave clarifications on issues like the revised Income Tax Return (ITR) forms, the contentious Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) levied to FIIs, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) as well as overall India's growth projection. 

Earthquake-ravaged Nepal is staring at a major economic crisis, with sectors like tourism and agriculture -- on which the country is heavily dependent -- thrown completely out of gear, industry body Assocham said today.


"At this point of time, a major economic crisis is looming over the Himalayan nation which, in any case, falls among the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The biggest impact would be on tourism that contributes over 8 per cent of the country's GDP," the industry said in its assessment.


The industry body, which will soon be launching a "Rebuild Nepal Programme" in coordination with the Indian government, said reconstruction estimates vary between USD 10-25 billion.


Besides the contribution to the GDP, the tourism generates employment for hundreds of thousands of people engaged in the entire value chain of tours and travel. It contributes to 7 per cent of the country's total job creation.


"Hundred per cent cancellations have been reported from tour operators who do Nepal bookings. Several countries have given advisories to their citizens to avoid Nepal. All forms of transport have been damaged," Assocham said.

Indian Army's Rapid Action Medical Team at the field hospital at Rajdal Gana, Lagankhel, in the interiors of Nepal.

The Government of India has taken serious objection to outgoing Chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Rahul Khullar, slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Jan Dhan yojana. The Finance Ministry is believed to have got in touch with the TRAI office for a clarification.

Khullar on Wednesday said financial inclusion will remain a "pipe dream" and merely opening bank accounts will not serve the purpose. "Merely talking about them or merely opening bank account will not get you the job. Take it from me. If you open 100 million accounts and most of them lie dormant... It is a typical Indian thing that you can pat yourself on your back... (What is the) big deal. What is the outcome, if net outcome is that nobody trusts it....," he said yesterday.

He said that financial inclusion though IT and mobile phones will remain a "pipe dream unless broadband proliferation" takes place across the country.

This is in fact the TRAI chief's parting shot since he is set to retire mid May. However, his wife is Sindhushree Khullar is the Secretary of Niti Ayog which is in charge of the PM's Jan Dhan yojana.

The government is likely to issue a stern warning against Khullar for his dramatic comments.

Khullar was also private secretary to Dr Manmohan Singh when he was finance minister during 1991-95.

BJP MPs snigger that Khullar has turned a Congress-i.

@SpokespersonMoD IAF's C-17 will be transporting 40 tons of MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) contributed by the Gujarat government tonight. 

The British public and the government raised 19 million pounds in one day for the victims of the devastating earthquake in Nepal. The British public donated over 14 million pounds to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Nepal Earthquake Appeal, matched by another 5 million pounds by the UK government in one day after it was launched on April 28 night.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley takes a dig at Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha while discussing the finance bill, today.


Responding to Rahul's jibe that the BJP was suit-boot ki sarkar, Jaitley says, "Being booted is good, but being booted out is bad. We are a soojh-boojh ka sarkar."


He also attacked Rahul for his comment yesterday, when he said that the PM was visiting India, he should also visit Punjab, alluding to Modi's frequent foreign trips.


Jaitley said, "Doing national duty is different from disappearing for a jaunt. The PM is criticised for his foreign visits, but at least we know where he is." That of course, was alluding to Rahul's 56-day sabbatical when nobody in his own party knew where he was.

Climbing will resume on Mount Everest by next week after an earthquake-triggered avalanche that left 18 people dead on the world's highest peak, a Nepalese government official said today.


Saturday's avalanche that ripped through base camp also destroyed ladders through the treacherous Khumbu icefall higher up the mountain, raising doubts about the future of this year's climbing season.


Tourism department chief Tulsi Gautam advised climbers against abandoning their expeditions, saying repairs were under way so that the spring season could continue for another few weeks.


"The ladders will be repaired in the next two to three days and climbing will continue, there is no reason for anyone to quit their expedition," Gautam told AFP.


He also played down concerns of further quakes and aftershocks. "There is no scientific reason to expect another quake... and we feel the ground is stable enough for climbing despite aftershocks," he said. Some 800 climbers were on the mountain when the avalanche roared through base camp, leaving 18 people dead and scores injured.

We timed it and it was just short of 15 minutes.


 Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien was closeted in one-on-one meeting with Arun Jaitley at the union minister's office in Parliament House, which raised a number of eyebrows of various MPs who shall remain unnamed. 


They blandly said they discussed the 'future'. In fact, the meeting would have gone on for much longer had it not been for Andhra Pradesh CM  Chandrababu Naidu, who sort of interrupted the meeting.


So, then what was all that about? Is the BJP courting the Trinamool especially with the Land Bill and GST Bill still on hold?


Having won the civic elections, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee can now afford to keep poll politics at bay. 

Nigerian troops rescued an additional 160 women and children from Boko Haram days after they found hundreds of other hostages, the military said Thursday.


"We are still working to verify the actual number of the rescued hostages but I can say they include around 60 women and 100 children," said Sani Usman, an army spokesman.


A female hostage and a soldier were killed during the rescue operation at Sambisa Forest, where the Islamist extremists operate from.This week, the military said it rescued nearly 300 hostages in a different operation at the same forest. Read more

A tender, if sombre moment between Nepal and India as His Excellency Deep Kumar Upadhyay, Ambassador of Nepal presents his credentials to President Pranab Mukherjee today. Upadhyay, who was the ambassador-designate till now, expressed his gratitude to India for its quick response in helping quake-hit Nepal under Operation Maitri.

Apart from Nepal, ambassadors of Mexico, Cyprus and the Bahamas also presented their credentials.

BJP chief Amit Shah disapproves of a Haryana minister's remark that farmers committing suicide are cowards.

Do NOT buy canned tuna from Bumble Bee Foods. An employee was cooked alive with 12,000 pounds of tuna when the oven was turned on while he was cleaning it.

Co-workers  at the company's plant in Santa Fe loaded it with 12,000 pounds of tuna and turned it on. During the two hour cooking time, temperatures in the oven reach 270 degrees.

Alright, the only upside to this horror story is that it happened in 2012 and the chances that the cans of 'human tuna' are still out there is slim.

The co-workers got off lightly and were charged with violating safety regulations on Monday. 

With incessant rains and the hot sun adding to the miseries of quake victims in Nepal, India today rushed 8,450 tents to its disaster-struck eastern neighbour.


According to a statement issued by National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the tents have been obtained from various paramilitary forces and out of the total, 750 are being airlifted while the rest are being dispatched through the road route to be distributed to those who have lost their abode that hit the Himalayan country on April 25.


"On request of the government of Nepal, 750 tents received from different paramilitary forces are being airlifted from Airforce base Palam to Nepal with the coordination of NDRF.


"In addition to above, 7,700 tents are being sent via the railway route to Nepal to assist the Nepalese authorities," the statement said.


The force, which is operating with 16 teams in and around Kathmandu, said the personnel have till now rescued 11 people and 115 bodies from under the rubble.


"The teams also recovered Rs 2,06,388 Nepalese currency, two gold bangles, a gold necklace, one gold bangle, a mangalsutra, 100gms of gold ornaments, three chains, five mobile phones from the various earthquake affected areas of Nepal. Besides, NDRF teams also provided medical aid to 411 injured persons," it said.


Pic: Indian Army trucks carrying 525 tents and 4950 blankets sent from Kanpur by road will be arriving at Gorkha tonight, says the Ministry of Defence.

BJP is now the world's largest political party with 10 crore members, announces its president Amit Shah at a press conference.

"I take both pride and pleasure in informing that BJP has become world's largest political party with 10 crore members. Glad to inform you that BJP is a party which has internal democracy, and our organizational polls take place in a time bound manner. There are around 1600 parties in our democracies, out of which very less parties have internal democracy within them," he said.  

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Swat awarded life imprisonment to 10 persons convicted for attempting to kill Malala Yousafzai. In September last year, militants behind the attack on Malala and two other school girls were arrested and identified.


Malala, who is now an education activist received the Nobel Peace Prize award along with Indian child rights campaigner Kailash Satyarthi.


Yousafzai, 17, was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in October 2012 for campaigning for girls' education and now lives in the UK. She is the youngest-ever recipient of a Nobel prize.

A Pakistani intruder was gunned down by the paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) in the Samba sector of Jammu this morning. A BSF spokesman in Jammu said BSF troops deployed 'observed one Pakistani of approximately 30-35 years of age coming towards the border fence'.

"The troops challenged him, but he did not stop and reached close to the fence. The BSF troops then shot him dead," the spokesman said.

-- Mukhtar Ahmad/Rediff.com

The cartoonist who drew the Prophet Mohammed for the first issueof the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo after the killings at the publication's offices in January has said that he will no longer turn his pencil to that subject.

Mohammed "no longer interests me," Renald Luzier, who works under the name Luz, said in an interview with the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles that was excerpted on its website on Wednesday.

Read more

Just in: Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal tells NDTV that the bus from which a mother and daughter were thrown out was "unfortunately ours".


The bus belonged to Orbit company, owned by the ruling Badal family, which came under fire from rivals parties with Aam Aadmi Party MP Bhagwant Mann demanding that they come clean on the issue.


Congress demanded a judicial inquiry saying that local authorities will not be able to act against the staff of the company because of the political links.


Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal condemned the incident and said that police were taking swift action against the accused. She said the state will ensure that the guilty get stringent punishment.


A 14-year-old girl died and her mother is in hospital with severe injuries after they were thrown off a moving bus in Punjab on Wednesday for resisting molestation attempts by a group of men, NDTV reported. Two persons have been arrested and booked for murder. The teenager, her mother and younger brother boarded the private bus from their village in Moga district, to visit a gurdwara last evening. There were only a handful of passengers at the time.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to to visit quake-hit Kathmandu tomorrow.


Nepal on Tuesday said India has led the relief and rescue operations being carried out in the quake-hit nation and was the first to rush aid to the people.


Nepal's Ambassador to India Deepak Kumar Upadhyay said there has been "unbelievable support and assistance' from India and the assurance of help from the Indian government has been like a "blank cheque.'


The Ambassador said though countries like the United States, China and Israel have been quick with relief material and help, the Nepalese people have received "overwhelming love and support' from India immediately after the quake hit on Saturday.

Why are we not surprised?

The Hoot reports that a woman journalist from a Marathi television channel was told to get up from the front-row seat she occupied at a function organised by the Swaminarayan Temple in Dadar, Mumbai to felicitate Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Phadnavis for bringing in a ban on beef in the state. The journalist was told that woman are not allowed to occupy the front seat!

A court in Ernakulam, Kerala, here has found 13 persons guilty in the palm chopping case of a professor, while acquitting 18 others.

The court upheld the decision to slap Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) on 10 of the accused. The NIA had submitted a charge-sheet against 31 accused in the case including charges of murder. Five of the accused are still absconding.

Thodupuzha New Man's college teacher TJ Joseph's palm was chopped off on July 4, 2010, for purportedly hurting religious sentiments in a question paper.

A former lecturer of Malayalam literature of Newman College at Thodupuzha, Joseph was attacked and his right hand chopped off allegedly by activists of a fundamentalist outfit on July 5, 2010, while he was going to church with his family.

The attackers told him that he was being punished for sacrilegious undertones of one of the questions he set for the second year graduate students.

Despite widespread condemnation the incident evoked, the college management dismissed Joseph from the job. His plea challenging the decision is pending before the University Apallete Tribubanal.

The extraordinary tale of an ordinary man: How tea boy Raju Yadav turned his life around and became a web developer. Abhishek Mande-Bhot/Rediff.com, meets him. Read 

Yahoo's Marissa Mayer got a nice pay bump last year, with a total compensation valued at $42.1M, up from $24.9M in 2013. While her base salary remained at $1M, Mayer received $11.8M in stock awards, $28.2M in option awards and $1.1M of non-equity incentive-plan compensation.
Yahoo noted that it delivered significant returns to shareholders in 2014 and said its focus on mobile growth "paid off."


You've turned a nice shade of green.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today spoke to the Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, who had called to express condolences at the loss of lives in various parts of India due to the recent earthquake. Sharif also appreciated India's efforts in the rescue operations in Nepal.


Modi has suggested that SAARC countries should conduct regular joint exercises on disaster relief and rescue. Sharif appreciated this idea and told Prime Minister Modi that this initiative should be taken up. The two leaders also discussed unseasonal rain and its adverse impact on crops. 

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi met family members of Kishor , Kamble, a farmer who committed suicide, in Amravati, Maharashtra, today. A resurgent Rahul returned to Delhi after a 56-day hiatus to take on the government over the land bill and crop procurement. He was in Punjab on Tuesday meeting farmers on crop procurement and spoke in Parliament on the issue yesterday.

Rahul made a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday, targeting the PM's visits abroad, and said, "The PM is visiting India, let him also visit Punjab and see the situation for himself."

He took another swipe at the BJP saying, "Does the farmer not make in India?"

Rahul today, began a 15-km padyatra in the Amravati district in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, during which he is meeting the families of farmers who committed suicide.

Gandhi, who reached Nagpur on Wednesday night, left on Thursday morning for village Gunji to begin the foot march dubbed as sanvad padyatra.

A network of 293 ground motion sensors located across northern, eastern and northeastern India lay crippled during Nepal's 7.9 magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks, handicapping researchers trying to assess how the quakes affected cities and towns in these regions. Read more

After experiencing major devastation and loss of life in the April 25 earthquake, Nepal was left with an unsavoury taste in its mouth after receiving packets of 'beef masala' as part of the relief package from Pakistan, Mail Today reports.

Since the majority-Hindu country treats cows as sacred and there is a blanket ban on slaughtering the animal, the development has the potential to trigger diplomatic acrimony between the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) member countries. Read more


Pic: The ready-to-eat food packet, a packet containing beef masala and potato bhujia sent to Nepal by Pakistan. Pic courtesy: Mail Today.

A 14-year-old girl died and her mother is in hospital with severe injuries after they were thrown off a moving bus in Punjab on Wednesday for resisting molestation attempts by a group of men, reports NDTV.

Two persons have been arrested and booked for murder. The teenager, her mother and younger brother boarded the private bus from their village in Moga district, to visit a gurdwara last evening. There were only a handful of passengers at the time.


"They kept abusing us. No one helped. They first pushed my daughter off the bus, then me," the girl's mother, who was unconscious for hours at a district hospital, said on Thursday. Read more

Pic courtesy: NDTV

A 39-member Indian Army team currently at the Everest Base Camp has voluntarily remained there to assist people including stranded tourists. The Indian Embassy also says that Army medical teams have been deployed at Barpak village, the epicentre of the Nepal Earthquake in the Gorkha district of Nepal.  

Embassy of India in Kathmandu tweets that India helicopters have delivered 100 tonnes of relief material in various districts of Nepal including Gorkha, Dhading, Rasuwa, Nuwako, all of which are in the interiors of the country and need help the most. 

Far away from their homeland and family members in the hour of tragedy, hundreds of Nepalese students studying here have turned into foot soldiers to raise funds for sending relief and succour to quake-hit Nepal.


The 7.9-magnitude temblor on Saturday and succeeding aftershocks in the Himalayan nation have claimed over 6,000 lives there and flattened the iconic architectural landscape of the country.


20-year-old Prajwal Basnet, who is pursuing a course in Chartered Accountancy here, joins a group of five-six fellow students to raise funds for the cause after attending classes.


"We are about 500 students who have volunteered to work towards raising funds. We study at the same place but we are from different parts of Nepal, and we have decided to put in our energies together to send relief material, medicines and other essential supplies there," Basnet told PTI.


He said first batch of relief material has already been sent, and once the necessary items have been arranged for, "we will send the second one too."

India will provide e-tourist visas to 31 more countries, including France and Canada, enabling the citizens of these nations easy entry to the country.

INC India tweets: Amravati: Rahul Gandhi undertakes a 'kisan padyatra', interacts with farmers at Kunha village. #RGKisaanPadyatra

Kolkattans faced a lot of problems this morning due to the 24-hour shutdown call by the Left parties and their central trade unions to protest against the 'violence and vote loot' by activists of the ruling Trinamool Congress in the recently concluded Kolkata municipal corporation elections.

A 14-year-old girl died and her mother is in hospital with severe injuries after they were thrown off a moving bus in Punjab on Wednesday for resisting molestation attempts by a group of men.

Real Madrid players paid respects to the victims of the devastating earthquake in Nepal. 

The national level road transport organisations have jointly called for a nation-wide day-long strike that began midnight last night in protest against the proposed new road transport bill.

The prosecution in the Little India Riot case has charged the accused Indian national of lying about being blocked by police from getting into his rented room in Little India, the area where the riot occurred in December 8, 2013. 

As the helicopter swooped over Nepal`s lush Gorkha Valley in search of earthquake survivors, the 10-foot `HELP!` sign spelled out by a desperate group of foreign trekkers couldn't fail to grab the pilot`s attention. 

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today began a 15-km day-long padyatra in Amravati district in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, during which he is meeting the families of farmers who committed suicide. 

After months of wait, Microsoft's ambitious IE-revamping attempt, Project Spartan finally has a name. And as fashionable and trendy as it could get, the newest browser on your Windows 10 OS will be called, the 'Microsoft Edge'.

The UN has launched a $415m (270m) appeal for those affected by Nepal's earthquake, as frustration mounts at the pace of relief efforts.

US President Barack Obama today called Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala to convey his deep condolences for the victims of the devastating quake and extended his full support for the rescue and relief mission.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has started an online page where survivors of the April 25 earthquake as well as family members of those missing can register themselves to contact each other.

Four members of a gang, which allegedly sent some Sri Lankan Tamil refugees from the state to various countries including Australia via Nepal using fake passports to avoid detection, have been arrested.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today called up his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee to congratulate her on Trinamool Congress's massive victory in the civic polls.

As Mumbai Police's image takes a big hit with men in khaki facing serious criminal charges, including rape, its chief today said his first and foremost job was to provide quality policing and not to keep his force happy.

Maharashtra's Minister for Social Justice Rajkumar Badole said here today that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to inaugurate the erstwhile London residence of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar after purchase formalities of the 2,050 square feet bungalow are completed.

In Baltimore, the numbers alone show the stark contrast between Monday's lawlessness and Tuesday's restraint.