The head of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response on Thursday hailed Liberia's success in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus, but warned against complacency now that the number of cases has dropped.

The Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage will commence June 8, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Thursday while announcing that elderly pilgrims and those with mobility issues will now be able to visit Mount Kailash for the first time via a motorable route passing through China.

The US and the Taliban central spokesman on Thursday denied plans to hold peace talks in Qatar, contradicting earlier claims by militant leaders that contacts would resume in the Gulf state within weeks.

The Bengaluru cops have banned the president of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen Asaduddin Owaisi from conducting a speech in the city, calling his speeches inflammatory. Earlier, Vishwa Hindu Parishad's Pravin Togadia was also banned from making speeches, saying that his speeches could lead to public disturbances. 

A snap poll conducted by ABP news has revealed that 52 per cent of people want Nitish Kumar as the chief minister of Bihar. Jitan Ram Manjhi, who will be going up against Kumar during the trust vote on Friday, was the second choice with 16 per cent. 

It is official. The Bharatiya Janata Party has announced its support to Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi during his confidence motion, scheduled for tomorrow. Former deputy chief minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said that the party has decided to back and support Manjhi during the confidence motion in the state assembly. However, he clarified that the BJP would  not join the government if Manjhi is able to prove his majority in the state assembly.

The urban development ministry has issued notice to the Indian National Congress to vacate its headquarters situated at 24 Akbar Road, Delhi. According to sources, the Congress is now seeking a way to extend their stay at the headquarters. 

That's the exact moment that a plane of the Red Bulls aerobatic team scraped the wing of another plane while doing stunts. Both the pilots had a miraculous escape, thankfully, and landed safely.  

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pin-striped suit is hogging all the limelight at a Surat auction but the humble Cricket Australia T-shirt gifted to him by bowling great Brett Lee is getting the cold shoulder.

While a diamond trader from Bhavnagar has offered a staggering Rs 1.41 crore for the navy blue suit Modi wore during his meeting with the US President Barack Obama last month, the bids for Lee's T-shirt range between a measly Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000.

"People are only looking for Modi suit. There is a T-shirt of Brett Lee gifted by Cricket Australia just beside the suit,but the bids for it are very low,' said a member of the organising committee.

"About 40 to 50 people have placed bids ranging from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 for the T-shirt that Brett Lee gifted Modiduring the latter's visit to Australia in November last year,' he said, showing the written bids of a handful of interested people.

A Surat-based diamond trader Mukesh Patel, who made a bid of Rs 1.39 crore for Modi's suit, said he is not interested in buying the yellow Cricket Australia T-shirt.

"I am not interested in buying the T-shirt. I want to purchase that historical suit only as it created a hype in the media. If I buy the T-shirt, I will be tempted to wear it. How can I wear it?' Patel said.

Indian Air Force chief Arup Raha today ruled out buying of more Russian SU-30s in place of French Rafale jets saying the two aircraft complement each other but do not replace the other.

Amid doubts creeping in that talks with Rafale would breakdown, Raha said that his force has no Plan B and was working on only Plan A.

Highlighting that his force has a number of legacy aircraft and their replacements are necessary, Raha said the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal, for which Rafale has been shortlisted, needs to be inked in the "quickest possible time because drawdown is true".

Defence sources had said that India could buy more Sukhoi 40s in case the Rafale deal does not happen.

The White House names Dr DJ Patil as the first US chief data scientist. Read

Delhi government grants licence to 40 new drug stores in Delhi to sell Tamiflu tablets for treatment of swine flu.

EAM Sushma Swaraj inaugurates the new route for the Kailash Mansarovar yatra. The new access is via the Nathula pass from June 18th. India and China agreed on this route during PM Modi-Chinese Prez Xi Jinping and Indo-China FMs meet.

And another swine flu whopper from Mumbai Mayor Snehal Ambekar.

Ambekar today called it a "heart disease" and made a bizarre suggestion that the municipal authority will plant trees to check the disease.

"Swine flu is a heart disease... Hence, BMC will plant trees, develop gardens and parks to check swine flu," Ambekar said after garlanding the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj here today, on the occasion of his birth anniversary.

Swine flu, caused by an infection of H1N1 virus, has claimed over 650 lives across the country and affected over 10,000 people. In Maharashtra, 83 disease-related deaths have been reported so far.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee has made a startling diagnosis -- that swine flu "mostly happens from mosquito bites."

At a press conference Banerjee said today that, "For swine flu we are taking all action, we have even kept ready isolated beds, for action as you all know it is nowadays a free earth, all human beings are travelling from here to there, it mostly happens from mosquito bites and various other reasons, to heal the disease is not possible for me, but to get it nicely treated is our duty on humanitarian grounds..."

Six new cases of swine flu were reported in West Bengal in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of infected cases in the state to 42.

Read: Everything you wanted to know about swine flu but didn't whom to ask.

In a grim reminder of the infamous Badaun incident, a teenage Dalit girl was raped and her body was later found hanging from a tree in Nighasan area of Lakhimpur in Uttar Pradesh, the police said today.

Senior Pakistani army and diplomatic officials said on Thursday the Afghan Taliban have signalled through the Pakistani military that they are willing to open peace talks, which could be held later in the day. Read

They say, every beautiful thing comes to an end; dreams and phenomenon too. Talking of them, a phenomenon that happened almost 20 years back by the name of 'Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge' had been running in the 'Maratha Mandir' of Mumbai since then. Today, after completing 1009 weeks at the Box Office, Yash Raj films shut shop. Finally, SRK and Kajol's DDLJ will be taken down from the theatre. Read more

1 jawan killed in an encounter between STF and Naxals in Dantewada's Kolkunda (Chhattisgarh).

The Day Nawaz Sharif's Plans Backfired: An Excerpt from Fatima Bhutto's 'Democracy'. Read

Read: 12 of the very best newspaper corrections

The Finance Ministry today organised the ritual 'halwa' ceremony which heralds the beginning of the quarantine for staff that will be associated with the preparation of the union budget document.

It has been a tradition which has continued for long.

As part of the ritual, 'halwa' is prepared in a big 'kadai' (vessel) and served to the entire staff in the ministry.

The significance of the sweet dish is that after it is served a large number of officials and support staff who are directly associated with the Budget making and printing process are required to stay in the ministry, cut off from their families. They are not even allowed to contact their near and dear ones on phone or any other form of communication, like email.

Only very senior officials in the Finance Ministry are permitted to go home.

Innumerable letters of protests are pouring in at 10 Janpath from former MPs and MLAs asking why Motilal Vora and CR Kesavan have been appointed trustees of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee.

A few Congress leaders are considering legal remedies in the Supreme Court as the bylaws of the Trust clearly mention that only Tamilians are to be appointed as trustees.

In the 1960s K Kamraj got 30 acres of land allotted to the TNCC in Tenampet in the heart of Chennai. In 2015 that land and building can be valued at an estimated Rs 5000 crore.

Congress VP Rahul Gandhi is keen to construct a mall with a seven-star hotel complex in collaboration with a Mumbai industrialist at the Tenampet grounds.

The first two floors will be given to the TNCC for its office. 

Union Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy belted in to Sukhoi Su-30MKI, ready to take off

Ahead of Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's floor test, Assembly Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary today granted the status of principal opposition party to JD(U) in place of BJP, which slammed the move as "arbitrary". The Speaker granted JD(U) leader Vijay Chaudhary the status of leader of opposition in place of BJP's Nand Kishore Yadav.

Former India Captain and ace leg spinner Anil Kumble has been chosen to be inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

Kumble, one of the most versatile wrist-spinners to ever play the game, will share the honour with Betty Wilson, one of the greatest womens cricketers of all-time. They will be inducted during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 match between India and South Africa at the MCG on 22 February.

The ICC Cricket Hall of Fame "recognises the achievements of the legends of the game from cricket's long and illustrious history".

Adam Gilchrist, Debbie Hockley, Bob Simpson and Waqar Younis were inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame for 2013-2014

Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary, Harichandan Prasad has written a strongly-worded letter to party president Sonia Gandhi protesting Kapil Sibal and P Chidambaram's presence as lawyers in the Orissa High Court.

The two eminent lawyers are appearing on behalf of the Odisha government in a mining case and the morale of Congress workers is believed to be low.

Travelling to Sri Lanka?

Passengers going to Sri Lanka will have to carry USD30 per day per person over the length of stay to be allowed to go to the Lanka. Srilankan Airlines has issued a circular saying it will not be able to issue boarding passes if the passenger does not carry the requisite money with them.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will reply to the charges made by HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh at 4 pm today in North Block. The government needs to go into damage control after Parekh's indictment of the Modi government, and Jaitley is believed to have discussed the matter with the Prime Minister in the morning and got the call for a presser approved.

Pitching for relaxing 'administrative controls' to improve ease of doing business, top industry leader Deepak Parekh has said that impatience has begun creeping in among businessmen as nothing has changed on ground in first nine months of the Narendra Modi government.

He said the industry is still optimistic about the changes it expects from the Modi government, but optimism is not translating into revenues and there has been little improvement on 'ease of doing business' front so far.

Parekh, who is known as a guiding voice of the Indian industry and has been on a number of key government panels on various policy and reform matters, further said that 'Make in India' can't succeed unless it is made easier for people to do business here and the decisions are fast-tracked.

Komal Kant Sharma who made a bid for Rs1.41 Crore, is the CMD of The Leela Group in Bhavnagar

Chirag Mehta makes a bid for Rs 1,41,00,111. Proceeds from this auction will go to Namaami Gange Trust Fund.

That's Mukesh Patel from Surat, man who made a bid of Rs 1.39 crore bid for the Modi suit.

In what comes as a huge relief to Teesta Setalvad and her husband, the Supreme Court has said that the Gujarat police cannot arrest the couple.

And bidding for the Modi suit is still on: Mukesh Patel from Surat makes a bid for Rs 1.39 crore, the highest so far. Proceeds from this auction will go to the Namaami Gange Trust Fund.

Up for auction were also two T-shirts of Modi including one gifted to him by Cricket Australia during his visit to Australia in November. The T-shirts were among 237 clothes and textiles items put for auction. In all, 455 items that Modi had received as gifts during his nearly nine-month long tenure have been put for auction to generate funds for the PM's ambitious 'Clean Ganga Mission'.

The Supreme Court has directed Teesta  and her NGOs to provide a list of documents and means of donors as sought by Gujarat police.

Activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband, accused of embezzling funds, will not be arrested, says Supreme Court in interim order.

A new bench of the Supreme Court heard Thursday the plea of social activist Setalvad and her husband seeking anticipatory bail in a case of alleged embezzlement of funds for a museum in Ahmedabad's Gulbarg Society that was devastated in the 2002 riots.

No reasons were given for the change in the bench. The case has been shifted from the bench of justices S J Mukhopadhya and N V Ramana, which had granted protection from arrest to the couple for six days on February 13, to a bench comprising Justices Dipak Mishra and Adarsh Kumar Goel.

The court said that the Gujarat police will not arrest Teesta or her husband.

In it's interim order today, the court said, "It is a matter of curtailing someone's liberty.  Why do Teesta and her husband need to be in custody for questioning? Question is whether liberty can be put in ventilator or ICU."

The President's bodyguard rehearsing for President Mukherjee's address to the Joint Session of Parliament on February 23.

Orissa Chief Justice Amitava Roy is being elevated to the Supreme Court Bench from March, and during the next sitting of the SC collegium, the  Maharashtra Chief Justice -- Mohit Shah's candidature -- may come up for deliberations. 

Former environment minister Jairam Ramesh left for Berlin for a week-long lecture tour. He is the only Congress leader who can talk on policy issues, seems to have lost heart in the Congress.

Ramesh is believed to be upset that Rahul Gandhi has not weeded out leaders who are above the age of 65 from the Congress. According to Ramesh, the only way the Congress could be saved is by getting rid of the senior citizens. 

The BJP Parliamentary Party has identified a group of six MPs who are expected to stall Parliament proceedings. Union minister Venkaiah Naidu is believed to be aware of the preparations of group.

Who are the six? They are CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury, TMC's Derek O'Brien, Janata Dal's KC Tyagi, Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, RJD's Pappu Yadav and AAP's Bhagwant Maan.

The group of six will be on their toes (literally and figuratively) rushing to the well of the house to disrupt proceedings.

JDU, Trinamool and AAP MPs will unite to protest the Narendra Modi government during the joint session of Parliament on Monday, when President Pranab Mukherjee will read his speech at the Central Hall of Parliament.

The MPs are protesting what they believe is the high-handedness of the Modi government on the Centre's interventions in Bihar's internal politics and to prevent Nitish Kumar from being sworn in as the state's chief
minister.

The JD-U is also upset with the president's silence after meeting a delegation of Yadavs with 130 MLAs. 

Even as a Surat-based businessman bid a whopping Rs 1.21 crore for prime minister Narendra Modi's pinstripe bandhgala suit, questions are being asked whether Modi took permission from the Toshakhana (treasury) to auction the suit, which was gifted to him by an NRI Gujarati businessman named Rameshkumar Bhikabhai Virani. The base price of the suit was fixed at Rs 11 lakh. Read

Also read: Did PM Modi violate code of conduct by accepting the name suit?

"No private citizen can be prevented from holding or propagating in India or abroad, a view contrary to that of the government of the day. The government, it seems is misreading the mandate in the Lok Sabha as being a mandate to crush dissent. In times when ruling parties have brute majorities in Parliament, the true test of safeguarding democracy is its ability to allow dissenting voices to be heard," says Indira Jaising, the former additional solicitor general.

Read

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal held his first public meet or the janata durbar  today. This was in keeping with Kejriwal's tradition and in fact, promise, of being available to the electorate. During his first brief stint as CM in 2013-2014, he had held a similar durbar which had ended in chaos with police having to lathi-charge the thousands that had turned up.

Today's event was less chaotic with at least a 1000 people allowed to meet the CM and hand over petitions.

The event, which began early this morning, lasted for around three hours, and was held at the AAP office in Kaushambi in Ghaziabad.

Within multilingual societies, maintaining the languages of ethnic and cultural groups is critical for the preservation of cultural heritage and identity. Read

Preity Zinta is angry. The actress is upset over a story by the International Business Times, which did a piece on February 18, "Bollywood Divas who dated Yuvraj Singh" and names Zinta among 9 other Bollywood stars and starlets. 

The IBT writes, "When Yuvraj was the captain of Preity Zinta's IPL team Kings XI Punjab, several reports noted the pair's growing closeness following the actress' bitter break up with former beau Ness Wadia in 2008. Even though they refuted the rumours on their alleged relationship, the duo was often snapped together at various events. Preity was also seen kissing and hugging the cricketer."

Moments ago, Zinta, tweeted this: "Dear Media (Specially International Business times) HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE 2 SAY THAT I HAVE NEVER DATED OR INTENDED TO DATE YUVRAJ SINGH?" 

Yuvraj Singh set a new record as he emerged as the costliest-ever buy in the Indian Premier League by going for a whopping Rs 16 crore to Delhi Daredevils in the eighth players' auction in Bangalore on February 16.

Four more days of imprisonment would be added to actor Sanjay Dutt's prison term, as he spent extra days out of jail when his furlough period ended and a decision on extension of his furlough was pending, Maharashtra Minister of State for Home Ram Shinde said.

A departmental inquiry was ordered against erring prison officials and action would be taken against them for the delay in deciding the extension of furlough, Shinde told reporters.

Here's the update on the Prithvi II missile.

India today successfully test-fired its indigenously developed nuclear capable Prithvi-II surface-to-surface missile with a strike range of 350 km as part of a user trial by the army from a test range at Chandipur in Odisha.

The missile test was carried out from a mobile launcher from launch complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at about 0920 hrs.

With a strike range of 350 km, Prithvi-II is capable of carrying 500 kg to 1,000 kg of warheads and is thrusted by liquid propulsion twine engines.

It uses advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvering trajectory.

So, it's done. Bihar's BJP MLAs have decided to vote in favor of CM Jitan Ram Manjhi on the floor of house and the central leadership has been informed about it.

The opposition BJP yesterday hinted at voting in favour of the embattled Manjhi during the February 20 trust vote with all its MLAs unanimously supporting such a move aimed at send "a strong reply to Nitish Kumar for humiliating a Mahadalit".

Continuing its rising streak for the seventh straight session, the BSE Sensex rose 114 points and the NSE Nifty regained the 8,900-level in early trade today as participants indulged in enlarging positions ahead of Budget.

The 30-share barometer spurted by 114.65 points, or 0.39 per cent, to trade at 29,434.91 with consumer durables, realty, auto, oil and gas and banking sector stocks, leading the rise.

Just In: The CBI tells special court it has completed investigations into the coal scam case allegedly involving Hindalco and others. The special court has fixed March 11 for considering the CBI's final report in the case.

Just In: India test-fires nuclear capable Prithvi-II missile from a test range in Odisha, report defence sources.

Just in: Global friends group has made a bid of Rs 1.25 crore from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's monogrammed suit. "We are a group of friends who have decided to contribute Rs 50000 each," Rajesh Maheshwari of Global Friends group said.

Today is the second day of auction in Surat for the pinstripped suit the PM wore during US President Barack Obama's visit. The proceeds will go the Clean Ganga campaign.   

Yesterday, a Surat-based businessman made a bid of Rs 1.21 crore at the auction.

Up for auction are also two T-shirts of Modi including one gifted to him by Cricket Australia during his visit to Australia in November. The T-shirts were among 237 clothes and textiles items put for auction.

After Ireland, UAE may just cause the next upset in the World Cup? They look like they may just edge out Zimbabwe! Check out the scorecard here

Narendra Modi will be the first prime minister to attend Statehood Day of Arunachal Pradesh on February 20. 

Modi will be in the state for just a couple of hours and will also use the opportunity to inaugurate the Arunachal Festival, flag-off the fully air-conditioned Arunachal-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and also inaugurate a comprehensive power transmission line project and the Itanagar water supply project.

PM's Arunachal visit comes at a time when he is scheduled to undertake his maiden official visit to China in May this year and five months after Chinese President Xi Jinping paid his maiden state visit to India.

The Chinese reaction to Modi's brief visit to Itanagar will be crucial as Beijing has reacted sharply each time whenever any Indian leader visits Arunachal Pradesh, the Indian state which China claims in entirety and describes as "southern Tibet', reports FirstPost. 

China accuses India of possessing some 90,000 sq km of "Chinese' territory, mostly in Arunachal Pradesh, a contention that has been disdainfully dismissed by Indian leadership for decades, cutting across the party lines.

Read the full report here

After the controversial claim of India's Coast Guard DIG BK Loshali that his force had blown up an intruding boat in December, Pakistan hit back accusing India of being "heinous in its face", CNN  IBN reports. 

"It has one again been proved that India has violated the international rules and disregarded the humanitarian considerations. India not only imposed baseless and false allegations on Pakistan like in the case of Samjhauta Express, but was involved in treacherously killing four innocent lives on board. India has once again proved to be heinous in its face, designs and urge for peace," Defence Minister Khawaja Asif alleged.

A video released by The Indian Express shows Loshali claiming that he ordered the Pakistani boat which was near the Indian maritime border on the intervening night of December 31, 2014 and January 1, 2015 be blown off.

Read the complete report here

India and the US have held their first ever bilateral dialogue on the United Nations and multilateral issues in the spirit of the "Delhi Declaration of Friendship"that strengthens and expands the two countries' relationship.  

"Today's discussions focused on international peace andsecurity, peacekeeping operations, counter-piracy, the Post-2015 Development Agenda, the UN Human Rights Council, and other matters of mutual interest," the State Department said in a statement yesterday.   

"This dialogue was held in the spirit of the Delhi Declaration of Friendship in which the United States and India vowed to hold regular consultations in multilateral forums,"it said.

United States President Barack Obama has said the US and its allies are not at war with Islam but with people who have perverted the religion, asserting that groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda are desperate for legitimacy by portraying themselves as holy warriors in defense of religion.   

"We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam," Obama said at the White House Summit on 'Countering Violent Extremism', yesterday.   

"ISIL and Al-Qaeda and groups like it are desperate for legitimacy. They try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam.   

"That's why the ISIL presumes to declare itself the Islamic State and they propagate the notion that America, and the West generally, are at war with Islam. That's how they recruit. That's how they try to radicalise young people," he said.   

Obama said those outside Muslim communities need to reject the terrorist narrative that the West and Islam are in conflict or modern life and Islam are in conflict. We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie, nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek. They are not religious leaders, they're terrorists," he said on the second day of the three-day conference, which is being attended by leaders from more than 60 countries including India.

Who should control the Delhi police?

The four-day-old Aam Aadmi Party government has said it would try to bring traffic police under its ambit to improve the traffic situation in the national capital, NDTV reports.

"We will make efforts to bring the traffic police under the Delhi government's ambit," said Transport Minister Gopal Rai as saying. "I have called a meeting of senior traffic police officials on Friday, in which we will discuss ways of managing the traffic problem," he added.

Finding a solution to Delhi's traffic woes was among the government's priorities, PTI reported, quoting Rai. The move will help manage the city's traffic better. The minister also said it will also study good traffic systems and replicate these in Delhi so people don't have to face problems due to poor traffic management.

The US has already killed a dozen or so ISIS operatives on the list including an ISIS chemical weapons expert the senior official says. But others are added to the list as intelligence is gained about their role in ISIS. 

Pro-European conservative Prokopis Pavlopoulos won 233-30 votes to be named president on Wednesday, after receiving backing from the main center-right opposition party and the new left-wing government led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

A plaza in this Arizona town will light up with candles Wednesday in memory of a hometown woman taken hostage by Islamic State militants.

At least 36 mourners at a funeral ceremony were killed and 27 wounded when an unidentified plane bombarded a village in Niger near the Nigerian border, the army said Wednesday.