Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste arrived home in Australia today after his release from Egypt where he was detained for more than 400 days, an AFP reporter at Brisbane airport said. 

Budget carrier SpiceJet today launched another discounted ticket scheme, offering fares as low as Rs 1,599 across its domestic network for travel between February 14 and April 15 even as it sought some more concessions from the government.

Saudi Arabia's new King Salman today called the burning alive of a Jordanian fighter pilot "inhuman and contrary to Islam". In a message of condolence to Jordan's King Abdullah II, he said the kingdom "learned with profound sadness of the martyrdom of Maaz al-Kassasbeh". 

The PMO, which summoned Home Secretary Anil Goswami over the Matang Sinh issue, has been sacked 

Amidst a controversy over a senior bureacrat trying to stall the arrest of former Union minister Matang Sinh, CBI today undertook major rejig of Joint Directors with Ashok Tiwari, who was supervising the probe in 2G spectrum scam being transferred to MDMA, which is probing Rajiv Gandhi assassination. 

The Chadian government said its forces killed more than 200 Boko Haram militants in fighting along the Cameroon-Nigeria border on Tuesday.

At least two shells landed near a hospital in the separatist-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Wednesday, killing at least three people nearby, a Reuters eyewitness said.

Five more persons today succumbed to swine flu in Rajasthan, taking the toll to 67 this year, a top official of the state medical and health directorate said here. 

BJP senior leader Ravi Shankar Prasad makes a statement on the Delhi vision document that uses the word 'immigrants' while referring to people from north-east states.

Prasad says, "The inadvertent mistake has been corrected by reprinting the chapter of Vision document in relation to our north eastern people. We have always walked an extra mile to ensure their protection. BJP has firmly believed our north-eastern brothers and sisters are proud citizens of India. The word 'immigrants' for north-easterns was a printing error. BJP deeply regrets for the mistake."

An AAP donor, who had contributed USD 1,000 to the party, today rubbished allegations against the party on the donation issue and said civil as well as criminal action were being initiated against the leader of AAP breakaway group AVAM for levelling false charges.

Jaskirat Mann also accused the AVAM (AAP Volunteer Action Manch) of displaying fake cheques at a press conference yesterday and challenged the group to substantiate their claims within 24 hours.

"I have already filed a defamation case. I have given a composite notice for civil as well as criminal action against Gopal Goyal of AVAM," Mann, who made the donation along with her husband from Canada two months ago, said when asked about the allegations.

Calling allegations against AAP of receiving Rs 2 crore last year through four "dubious" companies a conspiracy, she said the cheques shown by AVAM to media were fake. AAP has strongly rejected the allegations.

"Fake cheques were presented by AVAM or whoever that person who has given them to AVAM. So I want clarification from AVAM within 24 hours. They have to show me where these cheques have been deposited," she said.

At a press conference yesterday, the group had produced two undated cheques bearing no name and claimed that these "cheques were also being used for money laundering" by the party. When asked about the authenticity of the cheques, the AVAM refused to clarify.

Yogendra Yadav's Delhi projection based on party's survey:

Likely: AAP 51, BJP 15, Others 4
Best: AAP 57, BJP 10, Others 3
Worst: AAP 44, BJP 20, Others 6

Trinamool Congress MP Srinjoy Bose, who was arrested by the Special Crime branch of the CBI in connection with the Saradha case on November 21, was released on conditional bail today.

In a veiled attack at BJP ahead of Delhi assembly elections, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today said those who have launched the issue of "love jihad" will be taught a lesson by the people of Delhi.

"Those who have launched the issue of love jihad will be taught a lesson by the people of Delhi...," Yadav said without mentioning BJP at a public meeting at the Kisan Inter college in Bhabhua.

He said those who are spreading this canard and misleading the people will also get a lesson in West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (where assembly elections will be held later). On the problems being faced by sugarcane farmers, Yadav said it is because of the wrong policies of the Central government that they were not getting the right price for their produce.

SY Quraishi, former CEC on AAP's complaint that EVMs had been tampered with. "The EVMs are 100 per cent dependable, no tampering is possible, around polls there are such rumours."

Rosa Parks was not the first African-American woman to be arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. Nine months before she was jailed, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to yield her seat to a white passenger. Take a look.

As Arvind Kejriwal's campaign in Delhi surges ahead, it is hard to miss the desperation and panic that has taken hold of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its national leadership. Read

Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'Make in India' campaign, Rahul Gandhi today said the Rs.10 lakh suit he wore during US President Barack Obama's visit was "Make in UK".

Gandhi also accused Modi of working only for only four-five industrialists.

"Modiji said he will give you employment. He talked of Make in India. Crores of rupees were spent in marketing this Make in India. You tell me whether something came out of it. "He wears Rs 10 lakh suit. Newspapers report that this is not Make in India. That too is Make in UK. And then he tells you about Make in India and employment. Did any youth get employment? No. He told you that Delhi is dirty and clean it. He did not give you job, did not lessen your suffering but put a broom in your hand," Gandhi said at a rally in the national capital.

As the election campaign for Delhi reached a crescendo, the Congress Vice President targeted both the Prime Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, accusing them of "selling big dreams" and not fulfilling promises.


Pic: A take on Narendra Modi's woven coat. Click on the picture for a larger image.

"Amit Shah and Narendra Modi have made their biggest mistake. They have been very successful in the last two years, but this batting pair has made the biggest political mistake of their life so far, which is calling Kejriwal a chor. It will backfire on them," says AAP senior leader Ashish Khetan. Read 

Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's most prestigious centre of learning, has called for the killing and crucifixion of militants from the Islamic State group, expressing outrage over their murder of a Jordanian pilot (pictured).

In a statement after the burning alive of Maaz al-Kassasbeh, the Cairo-based authority called for the "killing, crucifixion and chopping of the limbs of Islamic State terrorists".-- AFP.


Also read: Jordan pilot hostage al-Kaseasbeh 'burned alive' by ISIS.

This is from their Facebook page -- trifle long for a post, but certainly winning.

Here you go...

"I may not agree with you, but I will defend to death my right to get offended. How dare you? Baahar mil." Desi Voltaire

Dear everyone,

Let's just all take a deep breath. They're just jokes. Unfunny, crass or whatever you want to call them, they're still just jokes. The AIB Knockout video has been taken down. While we'd love to claim that it's because so many people watched it that it broke YouTube, the truth's a little sadder.

First things first; no one person or force forced us to take this video down. This is not something that's happened because of a 3 am phonecall or a morcha at our front door or a gunman on a grassy knoll. Under the circumstances, this is us being pragmatic. Allow us to explain.

People who've been following our work will know that we've always tried to experiment with content be it on Youtube or a live comedy show, with the sole intent of making people laugh and/or think. AIB Knockout was another such attempt to try something new and bring the roast format to a country where celebrities aren't often known to laugh at themselves. To our pleasant surprise, we managed to bring together consenting adults who were willing to be made fun of by other consenting adults in a crowd full of (wait for it) consenting adults. And if we're honest, it was a phenomenally entertaining evening. Were the jokes repetitive? Crass? It didn't matter because they happened in the spirit of irony and good humour. It was just liberating to be able to say those things, things that people have thought in one form or another privately for years. A lot of the laughter that night came from that spirit (there's your answer, people who wondered why everyone was laughing at terrible jokes).

The video came with a clear disclaimer with several age and content warnings. No one was forced to watch it, we didn't buy airtime on every single TV channel on Earth to broadcast it. YouTube videos do not magically auto-play in front of you. And yet the videos got over 8 million views. Far more importantly, on the video page, the people who liked them outnumbered the people who disliked them by ten times to one. Yes, ten times.

The format was the same as any international roast i.e. insult comedy, delivered in the form of one-liners designed to be as rude as possible. It is performed with the understanding that none of the material is to be taken seriouslynone of the performers actually mean the "offensive" things they say to each other on the night. We clarify this simply to provide context.

With the Knockout, in our own juvenile, idiotic way, we wanted to push the envelope of comedy in this country. But then the envelope pushed back. Things got to a point where people who have supported us, people who work hard to make what we do come to life, were put in a position where things could get deeply unpleasant for them. And that's a problem. We can live with abuse, hate, anger, fury, rage, ignorance, bigotry and perhaps even bullying. But we don't want anybody to get hurt because of us. And we do mean anybody.

We hope it's clear by now that we never write with the aim of hurting people. That's not our goal and we daresay that no comedian ever does that. We don't go to work and say, "Hmm, let's offend XYZ people from XYZ community today." If we really wanted to piss off people and hurt them, we'd be selling credit cards over the phone.

Our job is to raid the newspapers, pop culture and life for observations and analogies and it's okay if you think we're juvenile or unfunny. We respect arguments that are critical, and as for the arguments we don't, we respect your right to make them without impediment. It is a courtesy we wish worked both ways.

Over the last few days, we've found ourselves subject to more scrutiny, judgment and opinion than we're worth. This Knockout shouldn't matter. In a secure culture it wouldn't matter.

We're lucky to have support pouring in from all quarters. First up, from our fans, just the greatest people in the world, who have nothing but good cheer and encouragement and positive thoughts. We were pleasantly surprised that people in power who we have made fun of in the past, including people from both the so-called right wing and left-wing, went out of their way to convey support to us. It was fantastic to know that they stand for free speech as much as us. Friends in the media have told us to stay our course, pledging their support for our right to say anything, no matter how ridiculous. Thank you to anyone who has stated in the last few days that we have the right to say what we want, not as comedians but more importantly as citizens of this country.

There's a larger cultural conversation going on here, where we're at the very edges of what it's okay to say. And it's a conversation we need to have now because the world we live in is entirely too complicated to be run by silences. We still stand by our belief in the right to absolute freedom of expression for us and for anyone who has anything to say about anything at all. We hope to be part of an environment that supports that sort of expression without fear of persecution, intimidation and most importantly, annoyance. As always, in our own AIB way we'll continue to strive towards creating that very environment.

In the meantime, we'd like to say thank you to our fans and everyone else who is standing by us. You guys make the struggle worth it. To everyone railing against us and against the stars that were present, to everyone who's decided we're destroying the fabric of our culture, to everyone who's called us seditious pornographers while plotting the downfall of Indian Values And Civilization As We Know It, we would like to reiterate that we are just a bunch of comedians who work, and have always worked, without any malicious intent whatsoever.

We encourage any and all conversation on the subject of freedom of expression, for our own silly selves, and for people better, smarter and more courageous than us. For hundreds and thousands of artists, commentators and any and all citizens that do not have the privilege of social platforms and reach that we do.

We are also cooperating with the authorities and hope to resume normal service soon. We'd like some sort of cheerful resolution to this so we can focus on more important national issues, like the upcoming Cricket World Cup.

P.S. Best of luck Virat Kohli. Sorry for the jokes. We heart emoticon you.

P.P.S. It's a good thing nobody's downloaded the file and put it on a torrent website or anything.

Meanwhile, PM Modi is addressing a rally in Ambedkar Nagar, Delhi. After dissing the exit polls, Modi says the wind is blowing in the BJP's direction.

He also reassured the people of the north-eastern that he is committed to their development. He said the party has apologised for the 'immigrant' mistake in the Delhi vision document.

Congress today made light of Arvind Kejriwal's charge of "tampering" of certain EVMs in Delhi to benefit BJP while telling AAP to withdraw from the February 7 Assembly polls if the party has genuine doubts.

"He (Kejriwal) is alleging that if any button is being pressed then the light lits against BJP's symbol. If there is a truth in what he is telling, he should boycott the polls."

"He knows these kinds of tricks better than any political person. So, if he thinks that EVMs are manipulated and he is having a genuine doubt about it, he should simply withdraw," party spokesman P C Chacko said.

Offense seems to be the best form of defence. A few days after a woman passenger aboard an Indigo flight shamed a man in a video for misbehaving with her, the 62-year-old accused, a businessman, said he was being framed.

The woman, who is a fashion designer from Bokaro had said that onboard an IndiGo Airlines flight on January 27, the man, who was in the seat behind her, touched her inappropriately as the flight was landing in Bhubaneswar.

The designer then took a video of her lambasting the businessman for his lewd behaviour that she later shared on Facebook. The video went viral.

Then, after landing in Bhubaneswar, she lodged a complaint with the police against the man, who was identified as Ravin Jhunjhunwala.

Speaking to The Indian Express, the Singapore-based businessman said he has been framed. "I have full faith in the Indian legal system. The law will take its own course. The matter is under investigation and I am sure the truth will come out. I would be exonerated," he said.

Read Shirin Dalvi's piece for NDTV today. 

Avadhnama.com, the website of the Urdu newspaper Shireen Dalvi used to edit, has been hacked, apparently by a Bangladeshi group. Take a look

Click on the picture for a larger image.

The new Union Home Secretary will be appointed this evening, say sources in North Block. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has picked two names from a panel of six and. Singh will meet Prime Minister Modi and finalise the name. The person will replace senior IAS officer Anil Goswami, who was appointed as the home secretary in June 2013. Goswami (58), was a 1978 batch IAS officer, and is the first bureaucrat from Jammu and Kashmir cadre to be appointed to the top post.

Journalist Shireen Dalvi has approached the Bombay High Court seeking anticipatory bail after several FIRs were slapped against her. 

Dalvi, the former editor of an Urdu daily newspaper, Awadhnama, was arrested on January 28 by the Mumbra police, for allegedly reprinting a cartoon of Prophet Mohammed that was originally published in Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical weekly magazine.

Dalvi (46) is on the run, with FIRs being filed against her on a daily basis across the state. Her two children have stopped attending college and she hasn't met them since January 17, the day she reproduced a cover of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo on Page One.

Read: No one took my side of the story: Shireen Dalvi

Music composer Ismail Darbar has been arrested for assault, a day after his son, Zaid, was arrested. Zaid, who is out on bail, was arrested for allegedly assaulting an assistant director over a monetary dispute.

Darbar (50), was named in the case. The Bollywood composer's son Zaid (21), his friends - Nishant Singh (21) and Mohsin Khan (29) - were arrested after a complaint was filed at Amboli Police Station by Prashant Choudhary, an assistant director, early yesterday morning.

The alleged incident took place at about 11 pm on Monday in the parking lot of Evershine Cosmic building in suburban Andheri where the complainant and the Darbars reside.

In his complaint, Choudhary (29) alleged the Darbars had been repeatedly evading him after he sought his pending dues related to a project he did for them.

"Choudhary met Darbar, his son Zaid and two others in the parking lot. As he once again asked for his dues, an argument broke out after which Zaid and his two friends (Singh and Khan) thrashed him with hockey sticks and also punched and kicked him. The victim has claimed that Darbar, too, beat him," said a police officer.

Choudhary approached the police this morning following which an FIR was filed against the four under IPC Sections 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), among others, and the trio was taken into custody.

The death toll in the Taiwanese plane that crashed this morning has gone up to 15. There were 58 people on board when the plane turned on its side in midair, clipped an elevated roadway and careened into a river today shortly after takeoff from the island's capital of Taipei.

The death toll in the TransAsia Airways flight was expected to rise as rescue crews cleared the mostly sunken fuselage in the Keelung River a couple dozen meters (yards) from the shore. Teams of rescuers in rubber rafts clustered around the wreckage.

The White House on Tuesday, February 3, strongly refuted the contention in some quarters that after all the embracing, hugs and the chai pe charcha between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the American leader, in his final speech at the Siri Fort Auditorium, delivered 'a parting shot' with his call for religious tolerance in India. Read

The more mud his opponents fling, the stronger Arvind Kejriwal emerges. Rashme Sehgal reports for Rediff.com. Read

Arrest in Lebanon lifts veil on life of Islamic State leader's ex-wife, Saja al-Dulaimi. Read

Meanwhile, the Election Commission rejects AAP's claims of EVM tampering and asks him to furnish proof and the number of the EVM that has been tampered.

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal accepts the EC's decision, saying, "EC has
cleared all our doubts about the EVM machine issue, they said that EVMs are all double checked."

Rahul at the Jahangirpuri rally on the Jayanthi issue: "I have always fought for the underprivileged and I will continue to do so fearlessly. Modi up Jayanthi to attack me. I told Jayanthi Natarajan that we should look into the welfare of the poor, adivasis and environment."

Virtually opening a can of worms, she accused Rahul Gandhi's office of planting stories to sully her reputation after she had resigned as the environment minister on the direction of Sonia Gandhi. She resigned in May 2013.

"Specific inputs were received from the office of Rahul Gandhi based on the representation by NGOs raising environment concerns on certain large projects," she said suggesting that the Congress vice-president had interfered in the decision making process.

She rued that she was not given a hearing by the top leadership after a flurry of media reports carrying "insinuation and innuendo' against her.

Rahul Gandhi speaking at a rally in Jahangirpuri, Delhi, ahead of the polls on February 7, says, "I asked Jayanthi Natarajan to save the environment and the adivasis, I am not scared of it."

This is the first time the Congress vice-president is bringing up the Jayanthi Natarajan issue.

Former environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan quit the Congress on Friday with a scathing attack on party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of forcing her to stall big-ticket projects by the Vedanta and Adani groups while making her a scapegoat for the UPA governments economic woes.

The Narendra Modi government is set to appoint seven new governors in Bihar, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.

The appointments are likely to take place by Friday before the governors' Conference at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The three-day conference, beginning February 7, is expected to deliberate on internal security, agricultural  production, economic growth and the manufacturing sector growth.

On earlier occasions there was a briefing by the concerned minister but this time there is a change. 

President Pranab Mukherjee has appointed ESL Narasimhan as the Andhra Pradesh governor as the doyen of governors to conduct the proceedings of the conference.

The urgency for the BJP government to name governors was necessitated due to the governors meet. This conference will be inaugurated by the President, will have interventions from the Prime Minister and senior union ministers of the Modi government.

The Prime Minister will interact separately with the governors to understand the political problems in their states.

Though the President has been interacting with governors over video conferences, it is believed he is keen to meet them individually.

15 best India TV stories that won Rajat Sharma a Padma Bhushan. Read

A plea has been filed in the Delhi HC seeking a CBI probe into AAP's past and current foreign funding. 

The announcement that Harper Lee will publish a new novel is thrilling to fans -- but also contradicts what the author has long said she wants. Read

In an ashram near the Ganges river in the Himalayan foothills, priest-turned-politician Sakshi Maharaj mimes rowing a boat to illustrate what will happen if Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government ignores Hindu nationalist demands.

Modi will have to be a boatman: one oar must focus on the economy and the other must concentrate on the Hindu agenda," says Maharaj, clad in saffron robes and sitting cross-legged on a bed.

He twirls his bejewelled fingers in the air, explaining that otherwise the boat will spin in circles.  Read

Plea filed in Delhi HC seeking CBI probe into AAP's past and current foreign funding.

In highly unusual testimony inside the federal supermax prison, a former operative for Al Qaeda has described prominent members of Saudi Arabia's royal family as major donors to the terrorist network in the late 1990s and claimed that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a Stinger missile with a staff member at the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
Read more

Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav reached Patna this morning to initiate the process for a smooth change of guard in Bihar.

He was accompanied by JD(U) secretary-general and Rajya Sabha member K C Tyagi.

A near-consensus has emerged in the state JD(U) to get Nitish Kumar back as the state chief minister and fight the coming assembly elections under his leadership.

Yadav's immediate task is to persuade incumbent chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi to step down and propose the name of Nitish Kumar as his successor.

It will be a sort of return-favour by Manjhi, who was handpicked by Nitish for the top job after the party debacle in Lok Sabha polls in the state.

Read more

Aam Aadmi Party, which has been alleging that EVMs were being tampered with to favour BJP in February 7 Assembly election, today said they will urge the Election Commission to allow them to put banners outside polling booths educating the voters about the machines.

"We urge CEC to allow us to put banners outside each booth educating voters abt EVMs," AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal said on Twitter.

"We suspect EVM tampering. Tried to meet CEC yesterday. He was busy. Hope we will be able to meet him today," he said in another tweet.

Kejriwal had claimed yesterday that discrepancies were found during an inspection of four such machines at Delhi Cantonment area yesterday.

He said that whatever button was pressed on the machines, the light against the BJP symbol lit up. AAP leaders had also approached the Election Commission last week to know what is the procedure if a voter finds such a discrepancy in an EVM.

Delhi police commissioner BS Bassi says that Shiv Menon, the late Sunanda Puskhar's son will be questioned sometime in the afternoon today "Shiv Menon was summoned before, but was out of country, he will come today," the top cop confirmed.

Shiv Menon will be questioned in connection with the murder of his mother Sunanda Pushkar. Menon is Pushkar's son from an earlier marriage.

Sunanda was found dead in a five-star hotel room in Delhi in January 2014, after publicly accusing Congress party lawmaker and former UN diplomat Tharoor of having an extra-marital affair with a Pakistani journalist.

After an autopsy initially concluded Pushkar probably died of an overdose of anti-depressant drugs, police said that she was poisoned and a case was registered earlier this month, nearly a year after her death.

Tharoor, who was questioned for more than three hours, is likely to be questioned again by the police.


Pic: Sunanda Pushkar with her son, Shiv Menon.

Indian budget smartphone maker Micromax leapfrogged South Korea's Samsung to become the leading supplier in India's booming smartphone market for the first time in the fourth quarter, research firm Canalys said.
Read more

US President Barack Obama has said that a video purportedly showing the burning alive of a Jordanian pilot shows the barbarity of the Islamic State that has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

"Today, we join the people of Jordan in grieving the loss of one of their own, First Lt Moaz al-Kasasbeh, cruelly and brutally killed by ISIL terrorists," he said in a statement.

Obama later met King Abdullah II of Jordan at his office. Along with his compatriots and other Arab and international members of the anti-ISIS coalition, al-Kasasbeh was in the vanguard of the effort to degrade and defeat the threat posed by the terror group, Obama said.

"Al-Kasasbeh's dedication, courage, and service to his country and family represent universal human values that stand in opposition to the cowardice and depravity of ISIL, which has been so broadly rejected around the globe. As we grieve together, we must stand united, respectful of his sacrifice to defeat this scourge," he said.

"Today, the coalition fights for everyone who has suffered from ISIL's inhumanity. It is their memory that invests us and our coalition partners with the undeterred resolve to see ISIL and its hateful ideology banished to the recesses of history," Obama said.

At least eight people are confirmed dead in the TransAsia airways flight. More than 50 people were on board the domestic flight, and a number of people were reportedly injured.

Parts of the wrecked fuselage of the turboprop ATR 72 jutted out of the Keelung River just a couple dozen meters (yards) from the shore near the city's downtown Sungshan airport. The main section of fuselage was on its side, missing a wing.  

Rescuers clustered around the plane in rubber boats more than two hours after the crash, and could be seen pulling carry-on luggage from an open plane door.

Negotiators of India and the US have a long way to go before nuclear reactors and military technology are transferred to India, according to details of the "breakthroughs" that have begun to emerge now. During the talks held by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama spread over three days last week, two major "breakthroughs" were announced. Read

The purported beheading by Islamic State (IS) of two Japanese journalists, and its warning that Japan would be one of its military targets in future, pose a challenge to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government. Its impact would perhaps mark a critical shift in Japanese foreign policy and public opinion.

Japan has largely been insulated from international terrorism in the past decade and radical Islam has little or almost nil hold in the country. Japan's pacifism is embodied in its Constitution of 1946, through which it has renounced war and outlawed belligerent responses to international disputes.  Read more

The Shiv Sena today welcomed the Pune police's decision to refuse permission for a gathering to be addressed by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (MIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Muslim reservation and charged that his speeches are a threat to religious tolerance. The BJP-ally accused Owaisi of "provoking communal tension" and pressed for steps to ensure he and his men are banned in the state.

Owaisi had sparked controversy last month with his statement that everyone is born Muslim.

Election Commission tells the High Court  that no changes can be made to the electoral rolls now as the final date of nominations are over. The Delhi high court on Monday sought the response of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal on Congress candidate Kiran Walia's plea for cancelling his candidature in the upcoming poll for "illegally' declaring himself as a resident of the national capital.

In other news, the NIA has arrested a close aide of suspected Burdwan blast mastermind Sheikh Rehmatullah alias Sajjid for allegedly running a recruitment camp for Jamaat-ul- Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) terror outfit from a madrassa in Murshidabad, taking the number of arrests in the case to 17.

The person identified as Mufazzil Haque was arrested from Mokimnagar area of the district bordering Bangladesh last night, official sources said.

Kiran Bedi says she will return the love of the people in full measure.  She says she has no words to express how she feels.

The BJP released a Vision Document yesterday, laying down a road map to make the national capital a world class city with major focus on development and women security besides promising transparency in governance.

However, the document did not spell out BJP's position on full statehood to the national capital which it had promised in its manifestos for the 2013 assembly polls and past elections.        

BJP's chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi was in tears, after she said she was overwhelmed by the love she received from the people of Delhi.  The incident happened during her rally in Krishna Nagar this morning.

However, yesterday, Bedi, was left largely unimpressed by her rival Arvind Kejriwal's praise for her and has attacked him again in connection with funding allegations. "Do not be carried away by him. He just wants to manipulate people," Bedi said.

Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party chief described her as a "very nice lady in the wrong party" and someone he would have liked to have in his party.

JUST IN: A plane belonging to Taiwanese carrier TransAsia Airways has crash-landed in a river in Taipei. Ten people were injured, Reuters reported. More than 50 people were onboard. Taiwan's Central News Agency showed a picture of a plane almost submerged in the Keelung river.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has wrapped up a three-day visit to China on Tuesday, amid expectations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's arrival in May is likely to spur economic ties, and improve the management of differences in the security domain.

Jordan has executed two prisoners, including a would-be female suicide bomber from Al Qaeda. 

Noted Bollywood music composer Ismail Darbar's son, along with two of his associates, were arrested on Tuesday on charges of assaulting an assistant director. According to the police, Jayed, along with his associates, had assaulted the victim over a payment dispute. The cops are now probing if the victim worked with Darbar. Interestingly, the music composer also has been named in connection with the case.

In a historic move, United Kingdom has voted in favour of the creation of babies with DNA from two women and one man. The UK is now set to become the first country to introduce laws to allow the creation of babies from three people.

At least six people died and 12 were injured when a Metro North train hit two cars in Valhalla, New York. Five of the dead were train passengers, and the sixth fatality was a female believed to be the driver of one of the vehicles, an official said.

The literary world is celebrating the news that Harper Lee will release a sequel to her beloved novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, a mere 55 years after she published that schoolroom classic.

US President Barack Obama spoke with Jordan's King Abdullah II in a hastily arranged meeting just hours after a video emerged of a caged Jordanian pilot being burned alive by the Islamic State group.