A Pakistani anti-terrorism court holding the trial of seven accused in the Mumbai terror attack case today adjourned the hearing till October 21.

The Congress today launched a hard-hitting attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing him of "selective amnesia" and "abdication of responsibility" in the wake of the Dadri lynching and rejected his description of the incident as "unfortunate". 

President Pranab Mukherjee unwittingly stumped a gathering of Israeli MPs today when he spoke about "Hummus" but sounded like he had referred to the Palestinian militant group.


Addressing the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem, Mukherjee remarked that the Indian population "enjoys the taste of hummus," which is an Israeli favourite. He pronounced it like "Hamas", which had Israeli politicians looking at each other for a moment.


Mukherjee is the first Indian President to visit Israel. He crossed over from Palestine after an overnight visit. He made a reference to the recent violence which has led to heavy casualties on both sides, in his remarks at a ceremonial welcome at the home of his Israeli counterpart Reuven Rivlin.


"We are distressed at the recent violence. India condemns all forms of terrorism. We have always sought a peaceful resolution of disputes," he said. Mukherjee had been subjected to criticism by the Israeli media for not speaking against Palestinian "terrorism" in his speeches in Palestine.

Don't discriminate against minorities while registering FIRs: Home Ministry tells states.

Thirty-five members of Subhas Chandra Bose's family meet PM Narendra Modi at his residence.


Netaji's kin are likely to request Prime Minister Modi to declassify all files related to Netaji's mysterious disappearance 70 years ago.


"Tomorrow is a very special day. I will meet family members of Subhas Babu at my residence. It is an honour to host them," Prime Minister Modi had tweeted yesterday.


Meanwhile, Chandra Kumar Bose, grand nephew of Netaji, said, "I am happy that Prime Minister Modi has invited us. The Prime Minister should declassify Netaji's files. I am sure that under Modiji's leadership, the truth will be revealed."Prime Minister Modi, addressing the nation in the 12th edition of his 'Mann Ki Baat' programme, had announced that he would be hosting Netaji's kin this month.

Three Army jawans were injured in a grenade attack by militants on a picket in Kupwara town of north Kashmir today, police said. Some unidentified militants hurled a grenade on a bunker of 41 Rashtriya Rifles at old bus stand in the town, about 90 kms from Srinagar, around 1440 hours, a police officer said.


He said the grenade exploded near the picket causing minor injuries to a jawan who has been shifted to Drugmulla Army hospital. Window panes of at least three vehicles of the Army, parked there, were also broken due to the explosion, the officer said, adding a hunt was launched to nab the militants.

File pic.

Just in: The Maharashtra Cabinet decides to double the amount of compensation for loss of property in terrorist attacks, riots , bomb blasts and Naxal attacks. (The Naxal category included for the 1st time).


The Cabinet also approves the Mukhyamantri Gram Sadak Yojna (CMGSY) for construction and repairing of roads. Rs 13,828 crore to be spent on this scheme in five years. CMGSY is to bring greater connectivity in rural area. Under this, 30,000km of roads will be repaired and 730km of new roads will be constructed.

Female cabin crew members were forced into overhead lockers on a plane as part of an initiation ritual for a Chinese airline, according to social media in China.


The images of the flight attendants lying in the lockers were shared on WeChat, a Chinese social media and texting app, and have angered Chinese internet users. Read more

Why Indian rich kids with poor grades are an attractive market for India's overseas campuses. Read

FLASH: Stay on arrest of Teesta Setalvad and her husband extended to December 5. The SC asks Teesta and her husband to adhere to conditions imposed by the Bombay HC while granting them relief.


Setalvad and her husband, Javed Anand, have been accused of violating financial laws in connection with funding given to them by the US-based Ford Foundation.


 Setalvad, 53, has also been charged by the Gujarat police of embezzling funds donated to the non-profits she runs for victims of the communal riots that seared the state in 2002.  She has denied any wrongdoing in all the cases brought against her, and claims that she is being persecuted for her legal attempts to hold Prime Minister Narendra Modi complicit in the violence. The Supreme Court has said there is no evidence that as Chief Minister at the time, Mr Modi did not do enough to stop the riots.

The CBI says its investigation is based on a complaint from the Home Ministry and that the sum involved is over 1 crore rupees ($160,000).

Amid a crackdown on foreign charities, the Home Ministry put the $12.5 billion Ford Foundation on a watch list this year. The PM has also criticized what he called "five-star activists.

Unlike many of us who don't remember the number of plug points in our homes; for some, that's a luxury. Meet Dhana Devi who goes to somebody else's home to charge her mobile phone because her house is not connected by electricity. As Bihar goes to the polls, Rediff.com looks at the state through the lives of its people. Read

At least 47 AIADMK MPs are hot-footing it to New Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to protest the frequent arrests of Tamil fishermen by the Sri Lankan navy.


AIADMK chief and Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa has written a three-page letter to Modi, which the MPs will hand over to the PM.

 
Deputy Speaker of the Tamil Nadu assembly, M Thambidurai, said the fishermen issue is hotting up in the southern part of  the state and that Jayalalaitha does not want to remain silent since she fears the DMK will eke political mileage out of the arrests.

A story of Hindu-Muslim amity amid religious disharmony.


A 45-year-old Muslim woman's devotion to Goddess Durga during Navratri festival and her contribution towards building a temple for the deity has earned her applause from Hindus in a locality in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh.


Every day during the nine-day Navratri festival, Sughra Bi comes to Sitla Mata Mandir, which was built by her contribution in Indiranagar area of Mandsaur three years back. She comes to the temple with folded hands and sings praises of Goddess Durga during Navratri.


Sughra fasts on 'Ashtami', the eighth day of Navratri, Sitla Mata Mandir Samiti president Bherulal Barhat said. The Hindus staying in the locality are all praise for her zeal and devotion towards the deity, he said.


"Her devotion and goddess edification is extraordinary," Barhat said. "I have been worshipping Goddess Durga since last 10 to 15 years. In the beginning I used to worship the deity of Durga kept on a platform in our locality. But one night, the Goddess came in my dream and asked me to build a temple for her," Sughra, a labourer who earns Rs 4,000 monthly, said.


The Durga devotee, who is mother of three children, said she asked for donation from the people to build the temple. Later on, some people chipped in and formed a society to build the temple.

Eminent author Shashi Deshpande today said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comment on the Dadri lynching incident were "far too weak."


The eminent author, who had resigned from the general council of the Sahitya Akademi expressing "disappointment" over PM's silence on Kannada author Kalburgi's murder, said that Modi has used a very weak word "unfortunate" to term the lynching incident.


The Prime Minister told a Bengali daily that the murder of a Muslim man in Dadri over rumours of eating beef and the opposition to Pakistani singer Ghulam concert is "undesirable and unfortunate."


"Unfortunate is a very weak term and the leader of the country should be morally responsible for whatever is happening in your country. People have elected you and a few words from the leader of the country makes a lot of difference," Deshpande said.


The Prime Minister had said, "Such debate has taken place in the past. BJP always opposed pseudo-secularism. Now again this debate is taking place in the face of unfortunate social malaise." The 77-year-old writer said, "I don't agree with him when he says BJP has always opposed pseudo secularism."

Stephanie and Brian Tobe's golf course wedding had an unexpected guest: Barack Obama.


While visiting California, President Obama enjoyed a round of golf at Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, where Stephanie and Brian were about to tie the knot yesterday.


"We saw the two SUVs that were the Secret Service SUVs, so then we knew he was on the course," Brian said. "We got word that we needed to delay the ceremony or start immediately," Photographer Erin Youngren told CNN affiliate KGTV.


The couple opted to wait for the President to finish the 18th hole, and enjoyed champagne while trying to catch a glimpse of him. Brian and Stephanie were content with seeing the President from the window of their hotel suite, but their photographer had some other ideas.


"I said I bet you if we went down there he would take a picture," Youngren said, "Stephanie was like 'YES,' and she took off running." They made it just in time.


The President took several pictures with the ecstatic couple. "He was so kind and gracious, especially to the couple," Youngren said. "It was a life moment that none of us will ever forget," Erin Youngren wrote on her blog.

A co-owner of the truck in which Pakistani terrorist Naved allegedly travelled to Udhampur to carry out the terror strike in August this year has been arrested by the National Investigation Agency.


Sabjar Ahmed, who also allegedly used to provide transport facilities to infiltrating Lashkar-e-Toiba militants in Kashmir, was nabbed last night from Kulgam in South Kashmir.


Ahmed is believed to be the conductor and co-owner of the truck in which Naved is believed to have travelled, along with another terrorist Mohammed Noman alias Momin, to Udhampur on August 5 where they attacked the BSF convoy, NIA sources said.


A group of four LeT terrorists Mohammad Naved Yakub, Zhargham alias Mohammed Bhai, Abu Okasa and Noman had entered India from Baba Reshi in Baramulla district to south Kashmir. The group split into two.


One group attacked BSF convoy in Udhampur on August 5, during which Naved was arrested and his associate Mohammed Noman alias Momin was killed. The agency had already arrested Showkat Ahmed Bhat and Khursheed Ahmed who were also involved in the alleged transportation of the terrorists in Kashmir.

Senior Bollywood actor Anupam Kher reacts to the paint attack on Sudheendra Kulkarni, chairman of the Observer Research Foundation, and the refusal by the Shiv Sena to allow Pakistani artiste Ghulam Ali's concert in Mumbai.

Kher said, "If anyone had misbehaved with Sudheendra Kulkarni's family would he have invited that person to tea? Mr Kasuri was former foreign secretary.


The case of Ghulam Ali is different, he is an artiste. There are many Pakistani artistes in the film industry."


On writers returning the Sahitya Akademi and the Padma Bhushan awards, Kher said, "Many say my wife is in the BJP so I am critical about academics returning awards, but I'm independent in my views.


"This is politically motivated, it's not like violent incidents are happening in the nation for the 1st time,  I think this is mostly to discredit the PM. If they want to return why not return everything? I have not been allowed to perform my play in Pakistan, I applied many times and the visa wasn't granted. That's fine, I can deal with it."


Kher's wife, Kirron, is a BJP MP from Chandigarh.

Three persons were injured when security forces allegedly opened fire to chase away a group of protesters in Pulwama district of south Kashmir, police said today.


A group of protesters allegedly pelted stones on a CRPF bunker at Awantipora, 32 kms from Srinagar on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway, last evening, a police officer said.


They said the security personnel allegedly opened fire to chase away the protestors which left three locals - Pervaiz Ahmad Dar, Junaid Shalla and Danish Ahmad Dar - injured. While Pervaiz received a bullet injury on the right shoulder, Junaid and Danish have splinter injuries on legs and right shoulder respectively, the officer said, adding they were hospitalised and their condition was stated to be "stable".


Protests broke out in Awantipora last evening after an exchange of fire between militants and security forces left two persons injured at Dogripora village. The protesters alleged that the civilians were injured in the firing by the security forces.

Minutes after PM Narendra Modi finally broke his silence on the Dadri lynching incident calling it unfortunate, BJP ally Shiv Sena slammed his statement saying the reaction was unfortunate.


Shiv Sena leader, Sanjay Raut said, If our Prime Minister has made such a statement on Dadri its really unfortunate. Talking about Prime Ministers name in the infamous Godhra riots, he said, We respect Narendra Modi because he became famous after the Godhra incident.


Modi in a interview to Anand Bazaar Patrika, voiced his protest against the Dadri lynching and the ban on Pakistani singer Ghulam Alis concert in Mumbai, by terming them unfortunate. He accused opposition of playing politics of polarization. He called both the incidents unfortunate and cleared the centres responsibility from the issues.


Modi said, These incidents are unfortunate. However, there is no connection to the Centre since these issues are related to law and order and are the concern of the state governments. Incidents like Dadri and Ghulam Ali are really sad but what is the role of the Centre in these incidents?

Beef ban: Supreme Court rejects petition to transfer case out of Jammu and Kashmir. An order enforcing a decades-old ban on the sale of beef in Jammu and Kashmir, which had sparked protests in the state, has been suspended by the Supreme Court for two months.

Sacked Gujarat cadre IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt was rebuked for his conduct of contacting opposition Congress party, NGOs and their activists to influence the Supreme Court which on Tuesday said he has not come up with "clean hands" to question the lodging of criminal cases against him.


The apex court dismissed his petitions seeking a court -monitored SIT probe in relation to the two FIRs against him for allegedly forcing his subordinate to file an affidavit in a 2002 riots case and hacking e-mail of a senior law officer, who is now an Additional Solicitor General.


His allegation was dubbed as totally "false and baseless" that the apex court-appointed Special Investigating Team (SIT) to probe the 2002 Gujarat riots cases had been leaking very sensitive and confidential details.


The top court noted in its judgement the contents of the e-mail exchanged by Bhatt, who was a high ranking officer, with an activist of Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) in which he has "mentioned to create a situation so as to make it difficult for a 3-Judge Bench of this Court to disregard shortcomings of SIT and exerting pressure by the groups and opinion makers in Delhi" in the case of Zakia Jafri seeking lodging of FIR against politicians and cops of Gujarat.


"It is apparent the petitioner had acted in deliberation and consultation with the leaders of rival political party, NGOs and had sent the e-mails to the effect that he was not fully exploited by a counsel of the rival political party while his statement was being recorded before Justice Nanavati Commission.

The Hindu cartoon on the blackening of Sudheendra Kulkarni's face by Shiv Sena goons. The Sena was protesting former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri's book launch in Mumbai.

Reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement over the Dadri lynching and the protest against Ghulam Ali, Hindustani Awam Morcha founder Jitan Ram Manjhi on Wednesday said that the former must have commented after a lot of thinking.


"It would not be good to comment on what the Prime Minister said because he must have said it after a lot of thinking and I accept it," Manjhi told the reporters in Patna.


Earlier, Prime Minister Modi had said that the incidents of Dadri lynching and protest against Ghulam Ali were 'unfortunate' indeed, but asserted that the Centre could not be blamed and also lashed out at the opposition accusing them of playing 'politics of polarization'.


In an interview to Anand Bazaar Patrika, the Prime Minister said, "These incidents are unfortunate. However, there is no connection to the Centre since these issues are related to law and order and are the concern of the state governments."

With its attention-grabbing antics and intimidating tactics laced with violence, the Shiv Sena is turning out to be a huge embarrassment for not only the BJP, its senior partner in government at the Centre and in Maharashtra, but also for Indian diplomacy.


The black-paint attack in Mumbai by its activists on Sudheendra Kulkarni for organising the launch of a book written by former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri might have been intended as a challenge to the BJP in Maharashtra, but it also poses difficulties for India in dealing with Pakistan, and in seeking the support of other nations against Pakistan. Read more

A private Chinese biotechnology company is planning to mass produce a vaccine to contain Ebola virus. Tianjin CanSino Biotechnology Inc has started construction of an industry base to produce the vaccine, developed by a team of biotech experts with the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences, in the Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Area, the company said. Investment into the base totals 2 billion yuan (about USD 317 million) and construction will be complete in September, 2018.

It is hard not to try to see in the politics of another country a version of one's own. To match Democrat in America with Labour in England, or, say, Congress in India; to find an easy affinity between Republican and Tory, and now, perhaps, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Pleasing as these symmetries are, and flat as the world may seem, they are false equivalencies. In fact, every society has a unique history of power, of which its politics are an expression. 
Read more

The truck driver, who ferried Naved, the terrorist who struck at Udhampur at a BSF convoy, has been arrested by officials from the National Investigation Agency. In August, Lashkar-e-Tayiba's Mohammed Naved Yakub and others ambushed a Border Security Forces convoy near Udhampur, killing two constables. After the attack, Naved was caught alive by villagers. 

Noted Bengali poet Mandakranta Sen returned her Sahitya Akademi Young Writers Special Award to protest against communal attacks in the country. "This is my mark of protest against what happened in Dadri and the attacks on writers and rationalists in other parts of the country," Sen said. 

Law Minister Sadananda Gowda said that a uniform civil code was the "need of the hour and in national interest" and "a step should be taken in that direction," but added that the government would not move on the issue without due consultation and consensus, not just within the government but with all stakeholders.

Breaking his silence and finally speaking about the Dadri incident and the opposition to Pakistan's Ghulam Ali and former Pakistan minister Khurshid Mansuri's events in Mumbai, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an interview to the Anand Bazaar Patrika said, "These incidents are unfortunate. However, there is no connection to the Centre and these issues are related to law and order and the concern of the state governments."

After the aborted NSA-level talks in New Delhi, there was a chance of the Indian and Pakistani National Security Advisors holding a meeting in New York last month, but India "got a sense" the other side wasn't open to the idea, said official sources. 

The winner of the Man Booker Prize will be announced today. Here are the nominees

Why Modi is right on not speaking on Dadri