Bollywood actor Salman Khan's lawyer today told the Bombay High Court that the prosecution had brought the evidence against the superstar in the 2002 hit-and-run case at the fag end of the trial as a last resort after other evidence fell apart.

Olympic and Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius, jailed for killing his girlfriend, is to be freed from prison to house arrest next Tuesday, a South African parole board says.

The BJP today hit out at Bihar's grand alliance, after all poll banners and posters featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi were removed from the Patna airport, stating that the opposition was acting out of "frustration" and claimed Modi continues to reign in people's heart.

The Election Commission today cautioned RJD chief Lalu Prasad for his reported castiest remarks which it said were violative of the model code and asked him to be "more careful" in public utterances during election campaigns in future.

A 33-year-old British Muslim woman who fled to Syria with her five children has said that the dreaded Islamic State terrorist group was not her "cup of tea" and that she wanted to return home to Britain.

Bollywood celebrities Madhur Bhandarkar, Pooja Bhatt, Konkona Sensharma today hailed the Supreme Court's decision to stay a state law banning dance bars in Maharashtra.

The Aam Aadmi Party will deploy its "army of workers", if necessary, to ensure that ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali's concert goes well in the national capital, senior party Sanjay Singh said today.

Geeta, a deaf-mute Indian woman who entered Pakistani territory 13 years ago by mistake, will return to India on October 26.


Officials in New Delhi confirmed that Geeta had found her family and will be flown home.


Announcing the good news, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said, "We have located her family. She will be handed over to them only after the DNA test."


According to reports, Geeta has identified her father, step-mother and siblings from a photograph sent to her by the Indian high commission in Islamabad. The family reportedly lives in Bihar.

Geeta, now 21, was found by Pakistan Rangers 13 years ago, sitting alone on the Samjhauta Express in Lahore that had come across the Wagah border.

The story of Geeta became more famous as it was similar with the one depicted in Salman Khan blockbuster Bajrangi Bhaijaan.

The Congress today dismissed as "perverse and cynical" Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's remarks trashing the steady stream of writers returning Sahitya Academy awards as a "manufactured paper rebellion".


The party alleged that it showed that the Narendra Modi dispensation was "insincere, insensitive and unconcerned" to what is happening in the country.


Congress leader Anand Sharma, however, steered clear of the observations on India in the U S State Department report on International Religious Freedom for the year 2014.


The India section of the report, which includes the UPA rule till May 26, says that in 2014, India witnessed religiously motivated killings, arrests, riots and coerced religious conversions and the police in some cases failed to respond effectively to communal violence.


"It is an issue concerning the nation so we will be able to judge it better than others (outsiders). We will not judge the government by what others are saying. We will judge the government on the basis of the situation on the ground," he told reporters.


Sharma dubbed Jaitley's remarks as "perverse and cynical" contending that there was a "plan to create division with the diabolical agenda of radical elements of the so called Hindutva forces to suppress dissent and intimidate those (who speak up)".


He was also critical of the Prime Minister's remarks on the issue. Sharma insisted that the Prime Minister needed to go beyond expressing regret over the communal incidents in the country. "The credibility of the Prime Minister has taken a beating after his statement yesterday," Sharma said.


Noting that communal conflicts are not a law and order issue, he said that "it is part of a larger agenda of suppression of voices". He said government's response showed that it was "insincere, insensitive and unconcerned" to the happenings in the country in the wake of the Dadri lynching incident.

Trouble seems to be brewing up for the Karnataka government. Dissidents have arrived in New Delhi and prominent among them is SM Krishna -- former union minister -- who met Sonia Gandhi today complain against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. Indications are that Krishna will also make a statement on the recent visit of Congress president Rahul Gandhi to Bengaluru. 

In a major reprieve for the government, the Supreme Court on Thursday allowed use of Aadhaar cards also for MNREGA, Jan Dhan Yojana, pension and provident fund schemes.


It had earlier restricted its use to public distribution system and LPG subsidy, compelling the government to rush to the court seeking a permission to use Aadhaar for more services.


A Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice H L Dattu, however, clarified that linking of Aadhaar for providing these services will only be on voluntary basis and no person shall be deprived of any benefit for want of Aadhaar 

The BJP leadership is upset with economist and columnist Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar's column 'Swamispeak' in the edit page of the Economic Times' yesterday.


Aiyar wrote: "Manohar Parrikar,  Union defence minister and former Goa chief minister, will be in the running to become the next prime minister if Modi dies of a heart attack tomorrow. Parrikar has been a loyal RSS man all his life."


The party feels that Aiyar could have avoided writing this as it's in bad taste. The BJP felt that the author could have mentioned the political death of Modi but not a mortal death.


Aiyar has refused to apologise but the Economic Times has summararily edited that part from its web edition today.


BJP sources confirmed that the Economic Times management found that such personal remarks could have been avoided and is believed to have assured the BJP that the policy of the paper is not against PM Modi but against his style of functioning and they do not subscribe to the views expressed by the author. 


Read Aiyar's blog (edited) in the ET today.

US President Barack Obama plans to keep 5,500 US troops across Afghanistan into 2017, senior administration officials told NBC News -- well more than the small security force he promised last year.


The United States currently has about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan -- sharply down from 100,000 that were in the country as recently as 2010.


Obama said last year that he wanted to withdraw nearly all of them by the end of 2016, leaving only about 1,000 to provide security for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.


The president is expected to make a formal announcement sometime Thursday morning that he plans to maintain 5,500 troops at bases in Bagram, Jalalabad and Kandahar into 2017 and the term of his successor, the U.S. officials said Wednesday night.


Pic: Obama meets US troops in Afghanistan on a 2014 surprise visit

India's stock markets rose nearly 1 percent on Thursday, on track to snap a three-session losing streak, as consumer stocks gained on hopes lower inflation and a larger-than-expected rate cut by the central bank in September would boost spending in the coming festive season.


Wholesale prices fell for an 11th straight month in September, plunging an annual 4.54 percent primarily on the back of tumbling oil prices, government data showed on Wednesday.


The country kicks off its two-month religious festive period on Monday, a time considered auspicious to buy big-ticket items such as cars, and when promotions abound. Company executives say they see the RBI's unexpectedly sharp 50 basis point cut last month as a lifeline.

Consumers have already been showing an eagerness to spend more on small luxuries, like movie tickets and fancy haircuts, even as the overall economy struggles to take off after a period of cooler growth.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been refused "safe passage" to undergo medical tests by the Foreign Office. The government of Ecuador made the request on behalf of Mr Assange who is seeking to undergo a MRI scan on his shoulder. Read more

FLASH: NCP to contest Bihar polls alone, will not ally with any party.

All India Bakchod @AllIndiaBakchod  tweets: They should just give this as the Sahitya Akademi trophy next year...


Over 32 Sahitya Akademi award winners returned their awards over the last one week to protest the increasing clampdown on personal freedoms.

Actor and BJP MP Kirron Kher today termed the act of authors returning Sahitya Akademi awards as "politically motivated". "I think the intellectuals who are giving up their awards are completely politically motivated, it's quite obvious. So many people died in 1984 in Delhi... around 3,000 Sikhs. But no one gave back the award that time," Kher said.


"They are now screaming about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP and RSS, so they are obviously politically motivated. It's so obvious you know. Rub the surface and the truth comes out," she said while claiming that the"truth" will come out soon.

President Pranab Mukherjee arrived in Jerusalem on Tuesday after visiting Jordan and Palestine. He met former president and PM of Israel and Nobel Peace Prize winner Simon Peres yesterday.

Angry RTI activists say they will boycott the Central Information Commission convention where PM Narendra Modi is scheduled to address the opening session.


The move comes after the Modi government has invited just seven RTI activists for the annual two-day event beginning October 16.


The activists invited include Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Shekhar Singh, Amrita Johri, Anjali Bharadwaj, Venkatesh Nayak and Lokesh Batra.


The RTI convention was earlier not on PM Modi's agenda as he was to travel to Bihar to campaign for state polls that began on Monday. The annual event traditionally opens with an address by the President or Prime Minister. This year, the function was postponed from Monday - October 12 is when the RTI Act came into effect - to Friday, reportedly to suit the prime minister's schedule.

Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis reacts to the  Supreme Court order today lifting the ban on dance bars in Maharashtra. Fadnavis said, "We will abide by the SC's decision on dance bars. The SC has said that there should be no obscenity in dance bars, so we will regulate them. We had also given an affidavit saying that we are in total support of the ban, but we will abide by the court's order." 

"My interest is to open up transparency to the people who unnecessary raise these issues. The prime minister has full right to go wherever he is going, but the question is why is he not transparent on expenditure."


Commodore (retd) Lokesh Batra on why he filed an RTI application to find out how much the prime minister spent on his foreign visits. Read the interview here.

The Navy plans to induct women officers as pilots of its maritime reconnaissance aircraft, which also have anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare capabilities, but has for now ruled out deploying them on warships in tune with existing government policy.


Of the 532 women officers currently in the Navy, there are already 51 "observers" that fly on maritime patrol aircraft like P-8I, IL-38 and Dornier to handle navigation, weapons and sensors. Admiral Robin Dhowan on Wednesday said the Navy has sent to the defence ministry the proposal to induct women as pilots as well. "It's under consideration. The government will have to take a view, a policy decision," he said.

Just three days into her job as a reporter, Clare Hollingworth could not have expected she'd land the biggest scoop of her career.After elbowing her way into an industry in which she had few connections and little experience, she landed a job as a journalist for the Daily Telegraph. But determined to prove her capabilities and worth, Hollingworth persuaded her editor to send her to Poland to report on the build-up to war in August 1939.

Read more

Just in: The Supreme Court allows dance bars to reopen in Maharashtra.

In a controversial move in 2005, dance performances in bars of the state were banned, but three-star and five-star hotels were kept out of the purview of the Act.

The government could not defend this discrimination when the ban was challenged before the Supreme Court which, in July last year, upheld a Bombay High Court verdict quashing the state government's order, ruling that the ban was discriminatory and violated the Constitutional right to earn a living.

The apex court had ruled that bar dancers could resume working after bars got back their licences for performances.

Last year, the Cabinet had authorised ministers in-charge of Excise, Home and Parliamentary Affairs departments to review the Act and consult group leaders in the state legislature on the proposal to amend the Act and remove the lacuna.

Accordingly, the decision was taken to amend the Act and ban dance performances in three-star and five-star hotels as well.

The government is likely to table the Amendment Bill in the ongoing session of the legislature.

Kannada Author K. Veerabhadrappa also returns Sahitya Akademi award in protest of rationalist MM Kalburgi's murder

Rai Mamta Kumari's first shot at politics ended before it could begin. She had gone to file her nomination with a procession of 56 four wheelers and distributed 1,800 food packets. Then something went wrong. Rediff.com met the would-be candidate in historic Chirand which dates back to the Stone Age. Read

Rajasthani litterateur Nand Bhardwaj has returned his Sahitya Akademi award, blaming the literary body of failing to "protect" the rights of writers. In a letter to Secretary of Sahitya Akademi yesterday, Bhardwaj, also attached a check of Rs 50,000 which he got with the award in 2004 and sent "prateek chinh" (logo) separately.


"My sentiments are hurt the way M M Kalburgi was shot dead and Akademi is unable to do anything to protect the rights of writers and not even expressed any condolence on this serious issue", showing letter to media persons, the former DD Director, commented.


Bhardwaj has won the prestigious honour for his book 'Samhi khulto marag.' Not only writers the common man's feeling were also threatened in the present scenario where freedom of expression has been facing fundamentalist and communal challenges, he alleged.


"This is a protest against religious and creative intolerance which is rising in recent time," he added. Bhardwaj is also the Rajasthan coordinator for Jaipur Literature Festivals (JLF), since its beginning.


With this, at least 29 authors including Nayantara Sahgal and Ashok Vajpeyi have decided to return their Akademi awards and five writers have stepped down from official positions of the literary body, which in turn has convened an emergency meeting on October 23 to discuss the developments.

Three local leaders of Telugu Desam Party who were allegedly held captive by Maoists in Visakhapatnam since October 5 have been released today, police said.


"All three leaders have reached their homes at 5 am today," Visakhapatnam District Superintendent of Police K Pravin said.


A group of Maoists, had allegedly held Telugu Desam mandal unit president Mamidi Balayya Padal, senior leader Vandalam Balayya and district committee member Mukkala Mahesh, hostage after summoning them from their Kothaguda village.


The rebels had demanded that the government drop plans to exploit bauxite in the 'agency' area, the officer said.

Students in Maharashtra today had a 'no bags day' as they celebrated the birth anniversary of former President A P J Abdul Kalam as 'Reading Day'. The education department, asking students to read non-academic books in school as well, had asked the schools to ensure that students left their school bags at home.


The decision to celebrate October 15 as 'Reading Day' was taken by state Education Minister Vinod Tawde soon after Kalam's death in July.


In a government resolution, the state has asked all schools to host book exhibitions and implement 'gift a book' programme. On 'Vaachan Prerna Din' today, Tawde visited Zilla Parishad School No. 1 at Achole in Nalasopara. He inaugurated the Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Vaachan Katta (reading hub) and gifted a book box to students. The minister interacted with students and thereafter visited a 'Book Mobile' van with students.


Pic: PM Modi pays his tributes before Dr Kalam's bust at DRDO.

Sudheendra Kulkarni, chairperson of the Observer Research Foundation, on Wednesday said the people of Mumbai had firmly rejected the Shiv Sena's approach on both the right to freedom of expression as well as the need for an Indo-Pakistan dialogue.


In an exclusive interview with The Hindu, Kulkarni, who faced a black paint attack by the Shiv Sena on Monday for hosting former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri in Mumbai, said "Mumbaikars have shown a strong sense of solidarity for the cause for which he was invited here. They have firmly rejected the Shiv Sena on both the right to have freedom of expression and the need to promote Indo-Pak. dialogue and normalisation of our relations.' Read

In an extract from his most recent book, How I Stopped Being A Jew, published in The Guardian, the Israeli historian, Shlomo Sand, expressed the hope "that the cultural distance between my great-grandson and me will be as great or greater than that separating me from my own great-grandfather."


His wish stemmed from a sense of exasperation with fellow citizens of Israel. "I have the misfortune," he wrote, "of living now among too many people who believe their descendants will resemble them in all respects, because for them peoples are eternal - a fortiori a race-people such as the Jews."  Read Swapan Dasgupta's column for the Telegraph.

The CBI today moved the Supreme Court challenging the Himachal Pradesh High Court order restraining it from interrogating Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh in an alleged corruption case. In effect, the CBI moved the SC to arrest Virbhadra Singh in the disproportionate assets case.


An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu said that they would hear the plea by the investigating agency on the opening day after the Dusshera holidays. The case will heard on October 26.

Just in: Former India left-arm fast bowler Zaheer Khan is set to announce his retirement from international cricket.


Zaheer, 37, has featured in 92 Tests and 200 ODIs for India. He last represented India in a Test match against New Zealand in February last year.


Zaheer finishes with 311 wickets in Tests and is India' s second most successful fast bowler after Kapil Dev.


He played a key part in India's World Cup triumph in 2011 but was affected by fitness issues in the last couple of years.

The Udyami Yubak Brinda Durga Puja, just off Joy Mitra street in north Kolkata, has been largely unremarkable in its 27 years of existence. Much like many of the thousands of small-budget puja committees in West Bengal, the paara (community) puja relied largely on the donations of local households. In fact the amount was so little, that in 2007 the puja organisers decided to just pay for the celebrations from their own pocket.  Read more

Anticipating an attack on India by China after the 1962 war, the then John F Kennedy administration was planning a USD 500 million military aid package for India including help to increase arms production and creation of six mountain divisions, a new book has said. The package, which was shelved due to Kennedy's assassination, also included an aid of USD 120 million to be equally split between the United States and Britain. But India under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted an aid package of USD 1.3 billion. Following intense negotiations between New Delhi and Washington, the two countries agreed on a military aid package of USD 500 million, former CIA official Bruce Riedel writes in his latest book.


The book "JFK's Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA and the Sino-Indian War" scheduled to hit the book stores in November says that the final decision with regard to this massive military aid package to India was to be decided at a White House meeting with Kennedy on November 26, 1963.


"But Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas several days earlier," Riedel writes. According to the book, National Security Action Memorandum No 209, approved on December 10, 1962 by JFK, authorised the mew military aid package for India.


"The United States would -- assist in creating and equipping six new mountain divisions to work with the Indian Army to guard the Himalayas, help India increase its own production facilities, and prepare for a US-UK air defense programme for India," the book says.


"The first two missions were to assist India develop its capabilities, and the third was joint American British military exercise in India," Riedel said adding that Kennedy wanted the funding programme of USD 120 million to be split 50-50 with the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth partners. Riedel writes that Nehru was disappointed with the proposed aid package.

Even as politics continues on the Dadri lynching episode, intelligence agencies have warned of a possible terror attack in Uttar Pradesh. Based on intercepts by the Intelligence Bureau and intelligence wing of Uttar Pradesh Police, terror groups are trying to take advantage of the tense atmosphere and are attempting to activate sleeper cells to carry out bomb blasts across the state. Terror groups are likely to target Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders Ashok Singhal and Pravin Togadia.

Author Amitav Ghosh said that while he "appreciated the courage' of writers who had returned their Sahitya Akademi awards, he would not return his own as that would "amount to a repudiation of the institution's history'. He also said the government was "tacitly enabling attacks (on writers)' and accused the Akademi of "dereliction of duty'.

The Tihar jail authorities recovered nine mobile phones, including an iPhone, from inside jail number 1. Five knives and two awls were also recovered in the raid, jail officials said.Additional inspector general of Tihar, Mukesh Prasad, said that they received information about mobile phones been hidden in a hole behind ward number 2. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today paid tribute to late former president APJ Abdul Kalam on his 84th birth anniversary. "Today we salute APJ Abdul Kalam and celebrate his monumental achievements as a scientist, scholar and the President of India. We fondly remember his passion for teaching and education. Dr Kalam truly ignited young minds with the power to think and innovate. Dr Kalam is not with us today but his thoughts, ideals and vision for India live on forever," PM Modi tweeted.

Former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi has a word of advice for his mahadalit supporters, as he faces an acid test of his popularity in the second phase of the Assembly elections in Bihar: "Pehle matdaan, phir madyapaan (first vote, then booze)." 

A 14-year-old girl from Jharkhand, working as a domestic help, was rescued from a house in Gurgaon's Krishna Colony.

The steady stream of writers returning Sahitya Akademi awards has been termed as a "manufactured paper rebellion" against the government by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. In a post, titled 'A manufactured revolt Politics by other means', on Facebook, the Union minister writes, "Is this protest real or a manufactured one? Is this not a case of ideological intolerance? There are large number of writers with left or Nehruvian leaning who have been recognised by the government in the past. Some of them may have been entitled to this recognition. I am neither questioning their academic merits nor their right to have political prejudices. Many of them have spoken out against the present prime minister even when he was chief minister of Gujarat. After the new government was sworn in May, 2014, those who had enjoyed the patronage under the earlier establishment, have obviously been uncomfortable with the present government."

Netaji's files to be declassified from January 2016: PM