A United Bangladesh plane with 173 people on board landed under emergency conditions at the airport here this evening due to some technical snag. 

Gunmen stormed a hotel in central Mali today in an apparent attempt to kidnap Westerners, killing at least three people and seizing hostages in an ongoing standoff with the army. 

In news just come in, President Pranab Mukherjee has cut short his Odisha visit and is returning to New Delhi. 

An eight-year-old girl and her mother died after being swept out to sea off Taiwan as Typhoon Soudelor bore down on the island, forcing thousands to flee, officials said today. 

Government today issued a alert to all sensitive ministries about a possible hacking attempt by Pakistani intelligence agencies to 'infiltrate' into the communication network for retrieving classified information. 

Just in: Ansar Al Islam, known as the Al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent, has claimed responsibility for the murder of secular Bangladeshi blogger Niloy Neel. 

The organisation in an email to the media in the evening hailed the murder that took place around 1:30pm in Khilgaon and threatened to destroy the other blasphemers, reports The Dhaka Tribune.

Neel is the fourth such blogger to be killed in Bangladesh this year.   

Read the full story here

The Enforcement Directorate today lodged an FIR relating to money laundering in the Louis Berger case to probe charges of bribing Indian officials to allegedly win a major water developmental project in Goa.

The agency had yesterday registered a similar case in Guwahati as the firm has been alleged to have conducted the said illegal act in Assam and Goa. Officials said the ED's zonal office registered a complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act after taking cognisance of a Goa crime branch FIR filed last month to probe the case.

"The ED case has been filed against an unknown former Goa minister and Louis Berger officials," agency sources said. The agency received a copy of the Goa police compliant early today and the PMLA case was filed in the evening, they said. ED is the first central probe agency to have taken over investigation in this case. The local police (crime branch) has already begun its probe and it arrested former state public works department minister Churchill Alemao two days back including few others earlier.

The agency will soon seek documents from the company and issue summons to its officials for recording of statement. The alleged bribery of $9,76,630 for the Goa project included bribe to a minister, the details of which have not been disclosed by the US department of justice.

The officials of the New Jersey-based company had confessed in the US last month of paying bribe to Indian officials and ministers for winning consultancy of Water Augmentation and Sewerage pipeline project under Japan International Cooperation Agency funding.

Amid mounting pressure from the Opposition Congress, the government today sought to allay fears of neighbouring states of Nagaland by assuring them that they would be consulted before the final agreement with the NSCN-IM was signed.

This was conveyed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to Nagaland Chief Minister T R Zeliang who called on him to New Delhi today. "Before the final agreement is signed with the NSCN-IM, chief ministers of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh will be taken into confidence," sources said quoting the home minister as having said to Zeliang during a 20 minute meeting.

Singh told Zeliang that the Central government has made it clear to NSCN-IM that their main demand of integration of Naga inhabitated areas would not be met but more powers would be given to local bodies like autonomous district council, the sources said.

Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan today said he never remarked that Maggi noodles will soon return to retail shelves.

Clarifying media reports in this regard, he said he never mentioned the test reports of the Central Food Technological Research Institute nor about the credibility of the government relating to foreign investment.

"Paswan has clarified that he has been quoted out of context and has been attributed things which he never meant," the food and consumer affairs ministry said in a statement. It said that "a section of press has carried agency based news item quoting the minister that 'CFTRI reports have found Maggie safe. I have a gut feeling it will return to retail shelves soon'."

"He (Paswan) has also been quoted as saying, 'After Maggie ban the perception of people has changed. Foreign investors will also now think twice before investing in India. Our credibility is at stake'," the statement said.

The minister only said that once public perception becomes negative about a product, credibility of that product gets affected, it added.

The movement of kanwarias coupled with water-logging and a breakdown of many vehicles triggered a massive traffic jam yesterday morning. The snarl that lasted more than three hours extended from Shankar Chowk in Gurgaon to the Mahipalpur flyover in Delhi.


Kanwarias is an annual pilgrimage of devotees of Shiva to Hindu pilgrimage places of Haridwar, Gaumukh and Gangotri in Uttarakhand and Sultanganj in Bihar to fetch holy waters of Ganga.


Pic: The massive traffic snarl at the Delhi-Gurgaon toll plaza. Photograph: PTI.

President Barack Obama is standing by his comparison between Iranian hardliners and Republicans who he says are dead set on derailing any nuclear deal."What I said is absolutely true, factually," Obama told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview that will air in full Sunday.  Read more

The Tripura Assembly on Friday unanimously resolved to send a proposal to the Centre for abolishing death penalty and to provide imprisonment up to death in case of heinous crimes.


"Death penalty is given by courts according to section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). This Assembly requests to the Government of India to bring necessary amendments to this Act and provide life imprisonment up to death in case of heinous crimes,' Opposition Congress MLA Jitendra Sarkar said moving a private member's resolution.

Meanwhile, 30 FTII students have been asked to leave the campus. Students who have finished the course have been told to leave.

More fodder for FTII students on why Gajendra Chauhan shouldn't head the institute. That's Chauhan with controversial god-woman Radhe Ma.

If you were a child during the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, you may not have read this interview. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt, then with India Today, spoke to Dawood Ibrahim, the prime accused in the case in a long telephone interview. Trust us, this is a must read. 

Just in: Activists from the Trinamool Youth Wing allegedly beats a student to death for refusing to join a protest march. The student was allegedly beaten with rods.


The victim, Krishnapada Jana, a Congress supporter, was attacked with iron rods as he was leaving the college. The incident happened around 2:30 pm today at the Sabang Sajanikanta Mahavidyalay after some Congress students reportedly refused to go to a meeting of West Bengal minister Soumen Mahapatra.

Students supporting the Trinamool Congress and the Congress party had earlier clashed over the issue, reports said.

Some respite for Mumbaikars. Mumbai Metro fares will not be hiked till October 31. The Supreme Court today dismissed Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority's plea seeking a freeze of the existing fare structure of the Mumbai Metro.


The apex court's ruling will allow Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra)-led Mumbai Metro One Private Limited (MMOPL) to increase the fare of the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar Metro to Rs 110 from the present Rs 40.

India will boycott the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association's conference or the Commonwealth meet if the Jammu and Kashmir Speaker is not invited, says Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. Islamabad is to host the meet to be held between September 30 and October 3.


Pakistan has ignored Jammu and Kashmir for the upcoming conference being hosted in Islamabad next month, citing 'disputed nature' of Kashmir as per UN resolutions. Though representatives of the Government of India and other states are among the invitees to the international program, no such invitation has been extended to J&K Government.


Representational pictures of the flags of the Commonwealth nations.

163 Indian fishermen, mostly from Gujarat, who were released from Pakistani jails on August 2, arrived in Vadodara to a warm welcome. The fishermen, who were apprehended by Pakistan Marine Security for the last two years from Arabian sea at Jakhau in Kutch district, bordering Pakistan, reached late last night.



They then set out for Veraval town in Somnath district, where they will be reunited with their family and friends.

The fishermen asked the authorities to convey their request to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to secure the immediate release of 50-year-old fisherman Dhirubhai Govindbhai Majithia, who had reportedly suffered a paralysis attack in a Pakistani jail, on humanitarian grounds. 

"They pushed me out of the truck (carrying Rajesh Khanna's body). What could be more mean than this? They didn't want me in the last journey. What can be more violent than this?" Anita Advani explains her case against Dimple Kapadia and her family. Read more

North Korea has announced it will establish its own time zone next week by pulling back its current standard time by 30 minutes.


Local time in North and South Korea and Japan has been the same since Japan's rule over what was single Korea from 1910 to 1945. The North's official Korean Central News Agency said on Friday that the establishment of "Pyongyang time' was aimed at rooting out the legacy of the Japanese colonial period.


The new time zone will take effect on 15 August -- the 70th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese rule at the end of the second world war.  Read more

Bihar government tables 1989 Bhagalpur riots report. Over a 1000 report died in the riots. 

Bharatiya Janata Party legislator from Dhar, Vel Singh Bhuriya has threatened to 'encounter' a journalist who was asking him questions at a public meeting.


The MLA, a former RSS functionary lost his cool when he was questioned about farmers compensation. Bhuriya said, "Talking of my rights, I even have the right to encounter someone, if people breach peace and indulges in problematic activities. You have made me the MLA so respect me like one," he added.

This will not go down well with Mumbaikars.


The Supreme Court today dismissed Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority's plea seeking a freeze of the existing fare structure of the Mumbai Metro.


The apex court's ruling will allow Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra)-led Mumbai Metro One Private Limited (MMOPL) to increase the fare of the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar Metro to Rs 110 from the present Rs 40.


The Fare Fixation Committee had recently permitted a fare in the band of Rs 10-110.


In April, a three-member committee of the central government had recommended the fare hike after analysing all aspects, including cost to operate the line and alternate modes of transport.

Both the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Border Security Force (BSF), the two largest paramilitary forces in the country, have claimed credit for gunning down an alleged Pakistani militant yesterday. Noman was shot dead while another suspect, Mohammed Naved, was caught alive by villagers after the duo had allegedly attacked and killed two BSF troopers on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway in Udhampur.


"Inspector Suresh Sharma of C/137 Quick Action Team of CRPF retaliated the attack and neutralised the militant," an official statement from the CRPF said, adding that Sharma was part of a road-opening party. But BSF director-general D.K. Pathak, who had gone to the ambush site in Udhampur yesterday, said one of the two troopers who died yesterday had killed the militant. Two BSF personnel - Rocky from Haryana and Subhendu Roy from Bengal -were killed when militants ambushed a BSF convoy. Read more

The man who edited Sholay died in penury. Sonil Dedhia/Rediff.com visited M S Shinde in February 2011, a year before he passed away. We re-post that interview as the iconic film completes 40 years next week. Read the interview here.

In May, Bangladesh banned an Islamist militant outfit that is believed to be behind the gruesome hacking deaths of three secular bloggers in recent months that have evoked outrage in the country and across the globe.


The Bangladesh government banned Ansarullah Bangla Team for its militant and anti-state activities with the home ministry publishing a gazette notification in this regard. It is the sixth such organisation to be outlawed for militant activities.

A gang armed with machetes hacked a secular blogger to death at his home in Dhaka today in the fourth such murder in Bangladesh since the start of the year, NDTV reports.


Niloy Neel was murdered after the gang broke into his apartment in the capital's Goran neighbourhood, according to the Bangladesh Blogger and Activist Network which was alerted to the attack by a witness.


"They entered his room in the fifth floor and shoved his friend aside and then hacked him (Neel) to death. He was a listed target of the Islamist militants," the network's head Imran H. Sarker told AFP.


Police confirmed Neel had been murdered but had no details on his background.


File pic of Ananta Bijoy Das, who was hacked to death in May this year, the third Bangladeshi blogger to be killed.

Fourth blogger murdered in Bangladesh this year, says activist group: Agence France-Presse. Details awaited. 

Amid growing dissent within Taliban ranks over succession following Mullah Omar's death, an influential Pakistani cleric known as the "Father of the Taliban" has endorsed the nomination of Mullah Akhtar Mansour as the group's supremo.


Pakistani and Afghan Ulema (religious scholars) associated with Darul Uloom Haqqania in Akora Khattak, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, have sworn allegiance to Mullah Mansour whose election has ostensibly fragmented the Afghan Taliban, the Express Tribune reported.

ISIS and LeT flags seen near Jamia Masjid in Srinagar (J&K).

A man by the name, Ram Sharma, in possession of knives and blades trying to enter Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray's residence at Matoshree held by the police.

PM Modi leaves Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa's residence after a 45-minute lunch meeting. In a significant gesture seen in the the backdrop of the NDA's push to garner support for its key economic reforms bills in Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa at her Poes Garden residence.


Though Jayalalithaa was not present during the launch of the National Handloom Day celebrations at the University of Madras, state Finance Minister O Panneerselvam read out her speech that warmly welcomed Modi.


Earlier in the day, Jayalalithaa had welcomed Modi at the airport. During his address, the Prime Minister also thanked "Dr Jayalalithaa", the state government and the people of Tamil Nadu for successfully organising the event.


From the function venue, the Prime Minister drove straight to the Chief Minister's residence. She warmly welcomed him at the doorstep.


During the discussions, she is understood to have taken up issues concerning Tamil Nadu including inter-state river disputes with Karnataka and Kerala and presented a memorandum.


The meeting assumes significance in the wake of AIADMK's broad support to the Modi government on the NDA's controversial Land Acquisition Bill in the Lok Sabha although Jayalalithaa had raised some reservations on it citing farmers' concerns ahead of its passage in the Rajya Sabha.


AIADMK has 37 members in the Lok Sabha and 11 in the Upper House.

Responding to a joint letter by MPs, BJD MP Baijayant Jay Panda on Thursday defended his demand for scrapping food subsidy, saying they were trying to distract from the issue by dragging in "recycled' allegations against his family-owned business.


Requesting the MPs to treat the canteen subsidy issue on its own merit, Panda said it has been attracting enormous criticism from "thousands of citizens'.


A group of MPs, including M B Rajesh (CPM) and Mullappally Ramachandran (Congress), had on Wednesday shot off a letter asking Panda to first give up "all big benefits and concessions' his family-owned company had received earlier, which included a loan waiver of Rs 2,300 crore.


"I was disappointed that you have tried to distract from the issue by dragging in recycled allegations against me and my relatives from decades ago, which have been refuted and clarified in public,' he said, providing a link to the post in his website.

The Supreme Court issues notices to Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar, his wife Twinkle Khanna and the late superstar Rajesh Khanna's estranged wife  Dimple Kapadia on a petition filed by Anita Advani against quashing of her complaint of domestic violence against them. Advani had requested for revival of her complaint of domestic violence filed against them, which was earlier quashed by Mumbai court.


Anita Advani, who used to live-in with Rajesh Khanna had filed a complaint in 2013 before a magistrate under the provisions of Domestic Violence Act against Dimple, daughters Twinkle and Rinkie and Akshay.


Anita had claimed that she was evicted from Rajesh Khanna's suburban
bungalow 'Aashirwad' after his death and had sought monthly maintenance and a three-bedroom flat in Bandra.


The magistrate had then issued notices to them for their reply, following which they approached the HC seeking quashing of the proceedings against them. The high court had earlier this year discharged Rinkie from the case after observing that she was married and lived in Kolkata and hence, offence under the Domestic Violence Act cannot be made out against her.

Six members of a family were crushed under the wheels of the New Jalpaiguri-Howrah Shatabdi Express in Malda district this morning.


Superintendent of Police Prasun Bandyopadhyay said the victims were crossing the tracks at around 7 am when they were mowed down by the speeding train.


Five of the deceased had come from Ajamnagar in Katihar district of Bihar to visit a relative. The sixth victim, who had been accompanying the other five, belonged to Lotora village under Harischandrapur police station, police said.


The incident occurred near Baroduari under the same police station, around 90 km from the district headquarter, the SP said. The bodies were were sent for postmortem.

The death toll in the twin train derailment in Madhya Pradesh's Harda district has gone up to 29, with the recovery of one more body from the mishap site, a railway official said today.


The villagers found one more body yesterday, thus taking the toll to 29 in the twin train tragedy, West Central Railway Public Relations Officer I A Siddiqui said.


Out of the 29 deceased, 17 have been identified while efforts are on to identify the others, he said. On the day of the accident, 12 bodies were found inside the bogies of the two trains--11 from Janta Express and one from Kamayani Express-- while the villagers had recovered bodies of 13 people from the vicinity, he said.


Later, a team of National Disaster Response Force launched a search operation and found three more bodies. The two trains -- Varanasi-bound Kamayani Express from Mumbai and Mumbai-bound Janta Express originating from Patna -- while crossing a railway bridge struck by flash floods in Harda on August 4 before midnight had jumped off the tracks, sending 17 bogies and one engine tumbling into a swollen Machak river.


Nearly 900 meters of railway track got badly damaged in the heavy rains that lashed the region on that day leading to the base material beneath the rail line getting washed away, which was the main cause of the accident, Siddiqui said.


Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Bhopal, Alok Kumar said 800 railway employees and officers were working day and night to restore the tracks. The rail traffic will resume in the section by Sunday evening, he said.

Enigmatic and reclusive in life, his death is no less mysterious. Since his famous escape on a motorbike from Kandahar after the US invasion in October 2001, very little was heard of Mullah Omar except for occasional audio messages. Those too went silent few years ago. Read more

Even as Tiger Memon trends on Twitter, the Mumbai Police said today that they had not intercepted any conversation between Tiger Memon and his mother Hanifa. The call purportedly happened hours before Yakub was hanged.


On Friday, a leading English daily reported that Tiger had called up the Memon residence in Mahim in the early hours of July 30. Memon is reported to have spoken to Hanifa and promised to avenge Yakub's death, while Hanifa reportedly pleaded with him to not perpetrate any further violence.  

"He was of the opinion that whenever elements exploit religious sentiments to achieve a political objective, a tragedy takes place. Govind Nihalani, who made Tamas, the memorable television epic based on Bhisham Sahni's novel, salutes the writer on his 100th birthday. Read his interview to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.

Police and intelligence sources involved in the questioning of Muhammad Naved, the alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist who was captured, said he had undergone three months of indoctrination and combat training at the Lashkar's Markaz Taiba camp in Mansehra -- the same facility where 26/11's Ajmal Kasab was prepared for war -- and was sent across the Line of Control this April.


Naved was to serve with the organisation's South Kashmir commander who operates using the code name Qasim Khan, sources said.

Read more

The capture of fidayeen Mohammad Naved alias Qasim Khan -- call him Qasab II -- during a terrorist attack in Udhampur, just days after the assault on Gurdaspur, is a significant achievement of the security forces and village defence squads. It also shows the determination of the handlers in Pakistan to disrupt and derail the 68th Independence Day celebrations and the proposed NSA-level talks and test the new government's tolerance threshold. Read more

"It's easy for Sonia-ji to give a byte, not easy for her to give a speech without reading it out from a paper," HRD Minister Smriti Irani.

Cong chief Sonia Gandhi revokes suspension of former CWC member Jagmeet Singh Brar.

The Mumbai blasts seem to be a reaction to the 'totality of events' in Ayodhya and Mumbai in December 1992 and January 1993.' Justice BN Srikrishna report.


Justice Srikrishna is spot on: If there were no riots in Mumbai in 1992-1993, there would have been no serial blasts. Like if there was no Godhra train burning there would have been no 2002 Gujarat riots, or if Indira Gandhi was not assassinated, there would have been no anti-Sikh pogrom in 1984. Or we could argue that if the Babri masjid was not demolished, the post-Babri riots would not have occurred; if Indira Gandhi hadn't ordered the army to storm the Golden Temple, Sikh militancy would have been contained; if the VHP hadn't undertaken a Kar-Seva in Ayodhya, no train would have been targeted. 


Read Rajdeep Sardesai's column for the Hindustan Times.

Congress MP @ShashiTharoor tweets: Final day of MPs' suspension marked by demonstrations before Mahatma Gandhi's statue and continued boycott of Lok Sabha. Wish it wasn't necessary.

A Mumbai-based journalist has been detained by the Delhi Police after he was found incoherently speaking something about the Islamic State.


Police have detained him suspecting that he was going to join the banned terror outfit.According to police, the man identified as Zubair Khan was detained from front of Iraq Embassy where he had come for a visa.


The local police received a call from the Iraq Embassy informing them that a man who came for a visa was speaking something about ISIS.


The embassy officials suspected that he had plans to join the banned terrorist outfit and gave a call to the police.


He was brought to the Vasant Vihar police station where he was questioned by police officers from Special Cell and local police.


According to sources, so far no incriminating evidence has been found against Zubair and he seems to be mentally unstable.

The Supreme Court has stayed the defamation case filed by Essar against Priya Pillai of Greenpeace in Singrauli, MP. The SC has issued a notice to Essar and the government of India as Pillai has challenged the validity of criminal defamation law also.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi reacts to External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj's statement in Parliament yesterday where she said had only helped Lalit Modi's wife as a humanitarian gesture.


Sonia, who is at the helm of Congress protests outside Parliament reacted to the foreign minister's statement, saying, "Sushma Swaraj is an expert in theatrics. In Sushma-jis place I'd have helped, but not broken the law."


Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi added, "As Sonia Gandhi's son, I can say that Sonia-ji would not have done the same thing. Sushma-ji's speech is hollow. She should tell the House how much Lalit Modi has paid her family to keep him out of trouble. Sushma Swaraj maintained full secrecy in the deal. There has been a financial transfer here. Sushma Swaraj's family has received money from Lalit Modi. "


Yesterday, in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj emphasised that she only acted on "humanitarian grounds".

"Lalit Modi's wife faces no criminal case. Why should she be deprived of the support of her husband while being treated for cancer?"

"Lalit Modi's wife is suffering from cancer for the last 17 years and it has recurred 10 times. Did not request or recommend anything to the UK government. There is nothing in the UK home department papers to back it.

"If it is a crime to help a woman like her (a cancer patient), then, yes, I have committed a crime. If you (Speaker) were in my place, what would you have done? If Soniaji was in my place, what would she have done? Would you have left her (Lalit Modi's wife) to die," Swaraj asked reading from the reports of Portuguese doctors and the statement of Lalit Modi's wife.

In a move that should be lauded irrespective of political affiliations, the AAP-led Delhi government announces that all hospitals in Delhi to provide free treatment to acid attack victims. 

Congress protest at the Gandhi Statue at the Parliament premises.

In a rare public appearance since she assumed office as Tamil Nadu chief minister in May this year, J Jayalalithaa was at the Chennai airport to receive PM Narendra Modi this morning. (See image alongside)


The PM will launch the first National Handloom Day celebrations at the University of Madras in Chennai and also have an informal 45-minute lunch with the CM at her Poes Garden residence. They are expected to break for lunch at 12:50 pm after the PM's official duties are over.


Tamil Nadu governor K Rosaiah, was also at the airport. The PM's visit, which we told you about yesterday, is being described as a courtesy call.


The BJP is believed to be reaching out to the AIADMK given that the party's numerical strength of 11 in the Rajya Sabha may not get the GST Bill passed in the Upper House.

Security has been beefed up at the residence of Supreme Court Justice Dipak Misra after he received an anonymous threatening letter. As per reports, the threat letter said, "irrespective of the protection you may avail, we will eliminate you."


Justice Misra was part of the three-judge Supreme Court bench which had dismissed the mercy plea and delivered the final order on 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon. Yakub was hanged at the Nagpur Central jail on July 30.

Mohammad Naved captured in Udhampur on Wednesday after he and another Pakistani terrorist attacked a Border Security Force convoy, says the four-member Lashkar-e-Taiba module managed to escape after a police team intercepted it in Pulwama of south Kashmir on July 23. Read

A Pakistani man has in an interview to newspaper Hindustan Times admitted that the terrorist captured in India on Wednesday is his son.


His declaration comes even as Pakistan denied any links to the terrorist and said he is not a Pakistani citizen. "Need cooperative approach, not blame game to combat terror. We expect Indian authorities to share necessary information about him with us to enable verification of his national status," Pakistan said on Thursday.  


From across the border, the man, Mohammad Yakub, told the Hindustan Times on phone that he is the 'unfortunate father' of the terrorist captured in Udhampur, who has told Indian investigators that his name is "Naved".

Read the full report here.