Day after the New Delhi Municipal Corporation renamed Aurangzeb road to APJ Abdual Kalam road, the Odisha government decided to pay tribute to the former president by naming India's missile test site, Wheeler Island, after him.Odhisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik made the announcement. The former president who was also known as the missile man of India and was the man behind this project. His association with this project goes back to as many as three decades.

More than 1000 migrants stranded for days at Budapest's main train station have reportedly left the building, intent on walking to the Austrian border. The huge refugee crowd included people in wheelchairs and on crutches, as well as parents carrying children on their shoulders, all prepared to march 175 kilometres to the border. The migrants were part of an estimated 2,000 people stuck in makeshift refugee camps at Keleti station, after railway authorities had blocked them from boarding trains to Austria and Germany because they lacked EU visas.

The photographer who shot the heart-wrenching picture showing a Syrian toddler's lifeless body washed ashore Turkey's Aegean coast said she was "petrified", the media reported.


"At that moment, when I saw the three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, I was petrified," said Nilufer Demir, a photo-journalist covering the migrant crisis in Aegean resort town of Bodrum for Turkey's Dogan News Agency (DHA), adding that she had no other option then to do her duty as a journalist.


Demir clicked the picture on Wednesday at around 6:00 am, on Bodrum's Akyarlar coast of Mugla province, where bodies of migrants washed ashore after two inflatable boats sank, Hurriyet news agency reported.


"Three-year-old Aylan Kurdi was lying lifeless face down in the surf, in his red t-shirt and dark blue shorts folded to his waist. The only thing I could do was to make his outcry heard."


It was that moment, Demir added, that she took the shot. Demir explained how she noticed another toddler, Aylan Kurdi's brother Galip on the ground, without a life-jacket, just like the other migrants.

"Galip was lying 100 metres away from his brother. I approached him this time. I noticed they didn't have any life-jackets on them, any arm floats, anything to help them to float in the water. This image shows how dramatic the incident was," added the reporter.

She further added that this issue was beyond the borders of Turkey and has become an international problem, as Bodrum district has turned into a transition point for refugees attempting to flee to Europe.

Meanwhile, Turkish security forces in Mugla detained four people suspected of human trafficking resulting in the death of 12 people on Thursday.

Sources from the smuggling and organised crime police department said four Syrian citizens had been apprehended for taking refugees from the Turkish coast to Greek islands.


In the first five months of 2015, over 42,000 people arrived by sea in Greece, most of them refugees, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

So, the meeting with RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, JD-U chief Sharad Yadav and SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav ends. "Our alliance will remain intact," Sharad Yadav said. "Gathbandhan pehle bhi tha, abhi bhi hai aur aage bhi rahega. The alliance was there, it is still exists, and it will always exist." 


Both leaders from Bihar met Mulayam Singh Yadav to convince him to rethink his exit from the Janata Parivaar, also dubbed the Grand Alliance, which is contesting the Bihar election with Nitish Kumar as its candidate for Chief Minister.

What could also work is that Lalu's daughter is married to Mulayam Singh Yadav's grand-nephew.


Yesterday, Mulayam Singh Yadav said his Samajwadi Party will contest Bihar alone, because it was assigned a paltry five of Bihar's 243 seats.

A curious 12-year-old student was killed and his mother injured when the boy started fiddling with a live grenade in North Kashmir's Ladoora village this morning.


Police said that the boy had picked a live grenade from Gania Mollah locality where an encounter had taken place between security forces and militants on Wednesday.


A local militant of Lashkar-e-Islam and an army man was killed in the encounter. Locals said that they heard a big blast at a house in the village in the morning, and when they reached near the house a young boy, identified as Tanvir Dar, and his mother were lying injured inside the house.


Both the son and his mother were taken to the hospital where boy succumbed to the injuries. While, the mother is being treated for splinter injuries, doctors have stated her position stable.  -- The Indian Express

Just in: UK radical preacher Anjem Choudary, charged with encouraging support for IS group, given conditional bail. 

RJD chief Lalu Prasad and JD-U chief Sharad Yadav today met Samajwadi Party President Mulayam Singh Yadav in New Delhi to mollify him, a day after SP announced quitting the anti-BJP alliance in Bihar, saying it felt "humiliated" after not being consulted for seat sharing.


Getting into damage control Prasad, whose daughter is married to the SP chief's son, rushed to the national capital from Patna and called on the SP chief at his residence where he was joined in by JD-U President Sharad Yadav to discuss ways to salvage the alliance.


While there was no word from the SP today a day after it held a press conference in Lucknow to announce the break-up over being offered only five seats in the 243-member Bihar Assembly, the JD-U President put up a brave face saying "everything will be settled".


He will also be visiting Patna to discuss the issue with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The JD-U chief had half-an-hour long meeting with Mulayam last night after which he had claimed that the alliance will remain intact like it was before in Bihar with Samajwadi Party being a part of it.

The International Organization for Migration said it had a report of 40-50 migrants missing at sea off Libya on Friday, but there were no immediate details or confirmation. IOM spokesman Joel Millman said that there had been 2,701 deaths so far this year and more than 364,000 people had arrived in Greece, Italy and Spain after crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

A poignant obituary to the Syrian child pictured dead washed up on the beach has been posted in the Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald.

The obit, with a picture of a teddy bear, reads:

"Aylan, You did not deserve to drown in the coldness of water and the coldness of human indifference.

"You were not a Migrant. You were not a Refugee. You were a 3 yr old little boy wanting to play safely, away from the threats of violence and war.


"In Heaven, you will be nursed by those who held you, by those who kissed you and by those who risked everything in the hope of you reaching the shores safely."

It ends: "Rest In Peace Aylan Kurdi. May God forgive us for failing you."

The obit is anonymous.


The world reacted to the powerful images of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi's body washed up, face down on a Turkish beach, and has become the human face of the unfolding refugee crisis. International outpourings of grief and calls for more to be done to help desperate Syrians fleeing conflict has headlined newspapers across the world. 

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office in May 2014, there were great expectations from the civil servants about the future. He came to power on the rising aspirations of young India.


His initial decision to retain the cabinet secretary, home secretary, finance secretary and others appointed by the previous government was widely appreciated, as also his initial meetings with secretaries -- where he exhorted them to to take decisions without fear or favour and promised to back them up.  Read more

It has been nearly three months since ex-servicemen began their protest at Jantar Mantar in the nation's capital for the implementation of the One Rank, One Pension scheme. Insiyah Vahanvaty/Rediff.com spoke to five protesting veterans about their time in the defence services and why they want OROP scheme implemented. Read

Just in: The Delhi High Court allows women officers in the Indian navy on the basis of a plea by 19 navy officers. The landmark judgment by the high court allows Permanent Commission for women officers. The HC bench  said "bias should not block women."


The Navy has been working on a policy to allow women officers on-board warships in the next few years. "The living conditions in ships are entirely different. So now, we are modifying the ships and designing them as per the conditions required for women officers," Commodore B K Munjal, had said.  He said the country will "soon" have women officers fighting shoulder to shoulder with men in every field.


However, in May, Defence minister Manohar Parrikar had ruled out recruiting women for combat operations in armed forces due to apprehensions about their safety but said they would be encouraged to join other operational areas with their inclusion being stepped up in phases.


"No. Think of what can happen if a woman is taken as a prisoner in combat operation," he said, implying at possible atrocities they might suffer if held captive by enemy forces.

Three people accused of raping a 19-year-old Japanese tourist in February this year, were sentenced to 20 years in prison by a court in Jaipur today. Three others were found guilty of conspiring to gang-rape the woman but their sentences are yet to be announced.


According to the police, the tourist checked in to a guest house in Jalupura, a suburban locality in Jaipur on February 8 afternoon and went to Jalmahal, a tourist place.


There a young man named Ajit Chaudhary who was apparently a tour guide, walked up to her. He befriended her speaking fluent English and offered her to take around the city on his motorcycle.


Both went around the city till 10 pm during which he took her to a woman's place who he identified as his sister for a cup of tea and later, to another one, introduced to her as his aunt, for dinner.


Later, on pretext of dropping her at the guest house, he drove her towards Dudu saying he was taking her from a different route. Short of Dudu, he raped her road side at an isolate place. He also took her cell phone and some cash, initial reports said.


Later, he drove her to a house where another man was waiting for them. She resisted getting inside and ran screaming towards a motorcyclist. Later he gave her shelter before taking her to police.Police have arrested those who were aware about rape, gave him shelter, let him escape and were planning to rape her. 

Just in: A day after the Mulayam Singh-led Samajwadi Party broke off from anti-BJP 'grand alliance' over seat sharing, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav said that he will "meet Netaji today and will resolve whatever misunderstanding is there."


The nascent 'Grand Alliance' on Thursday suffered a blow ahead of the Bihar assembly polls with Samajwadi Party storming out of it, saying it felt humiliated at being allotted a paltry five seats and deciding to contest the elections on its own.


"In Bihar, the party will contest separately. The bigger parties in the alliance did not consult us while declaring seats due to which the SP felt humiliated. This is not the gathbandhan dharma, SP general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav told reporters in Lucknow.


The decision to walk out of the coalition was taken at a meeting of SP parliamentary board in the presence of party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who had brokered peace between Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad and succeeded in persuading the latter to accept the Bihar chief minister as the secular alliances chief ministerial candidate.


The development, coming weeks ahead of the high-stakes electoral battle may split the secular votes being eyed by the Janata Dal-United-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress combine.


However, president Sharad Yadav put up a brave face, claiming differences with Samajwadi Party will be sorted out and the alliance will remain intact.


Thursdays development may also put into jeopardy the proposed merger of six splintered parties of the erstwhile Janata Parivar into one political entity. These parties-- SP, RJD, JD-U, Janata Dal-Secular, Indian National Lok Dal and Samajwadi Janata Party -- had in April this year announced a merger, which they had said, would be formalised after the Bihar elections.

Ola cab driver arrested for eve-teasing; FIR was registered at Shanti Nagar police station (Jaipur) on a complaint filed by a tourist from Finland.

UK PM David Cameron is expected to commit later to allow "thousands" more Syrian refugees to resettle in the UK.The extra refugees are expected to come from UN camps bordering Syria, and not from among people already in Europe. The BBC reports that Cameron has previously said accepting more people was not the simple answer to the worsening humanitarian crisis.

Just in: Japanese tourist rape case. Three of nine accused get 20 years in jail for a raping a 20-year-old Japanese woman in Jaipur. 

Just in: The father of the dead Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, returns to Kobani to bury his family. In the aftermath of the deaths of his two sons and wife, Abdullah Kurdi, says he no longer wants to continue on to Europe and will take the bodies to be buried in his home town of Kobani.


Abdullah Kurdi, told the Guardian, that he had been in Turkey for three years and previously lived in Damascus. A Syrian Kurd, Abdullah said he no longer had any desire to continue on to Europe. Speaking outside the mortuary where the bodies of his two sons were being held, Kurdi said, "I just want to see my children for the last time and stay forever with them."


Aylan, his five-year-old brother Ghalip and mother Rehan were among 12 Syrians who died after two boats capsized soon after setting off for Kos.


The two boys and their mother Rehan, 35, drowned when their overcrowded dinghy capsized after it had left the Akyarlar area of the Bodrum peninsular for the Greek island of Kos. They were among at least 12 people on the 16ft boat who died out of 16 who set off. Their bodies were washed up hours later.


The Turkish smuggler who owned the boat is believed to have abandoned it when the sea became rough, leaving the passengers struggling to control it for an hour before it overturned.


The boys father, Abdullah, was one of the few survivors. He was in the sea for three hours before he was rescued by the Greek coastguard. He tried to hold onto his family but one by one they were washed from his grasp.


Pic: Aylan (3) and his brother Ghalip Kurdi (5). The family hoped to have a better life in Greece. 

Former CM Omar Abdullah accuses the Jammu and Kashmir government of spying on him.

Omar tweeted: "Dear Mufti Sb if you & your apparatchiks want to know what I'm up to pick up the phone & ask me. Please don't accost people outside my gate!

"A journalist interviewing me for a national daily just got stopped right outside my gate by CID person. She was asked who she was & what the purpose of her visit was! Seriously guys if you want to know just ask me, I couldn't care less if U do. Mufti Govt brazenly spying on me."

It's the third straight day that Peter Mukerjea is being questioned by the Mumbai Police in the murder case of his step-daughter Sheena Bora. Mukerjea arrived at the Khar police station around noon. He was accompanied by his step-daughter Vidhie.

Indrani's daughter Vidhie was summoned to the police station with her laptop, which may be seized by the investigations team.

Early reports say Sheena's father (Sidhharth Das's) DNA samples will also be taken today.

Peter Mukerjea has spent close to 12 hours at the police station over the last two days.

Indrani was arrested last week for the murder of her daughter Sheena. She is police custody at the Khar police station also along with her former husband Sanjeev Khanna, Vidhie's father and the driver Shyamvar Rai.

Khanna has reportedly told the police that he agreed to help kill Sheena Bora because he was told Bora and her younger brother Mikhail were planning to kill Vidhie, his daughter.

JUST IN: Suspect in custody unlikely to be Bangkok shrine bomber but "definitely" a conspirator, says Thai Police.

Just in: The union government is likely to announce the One Rank One Pension (OROP) in the next 48 hours.  The OROP will affect defence veterans and widows of soldiers.


According to the OROP draft accessed by CNN-IBN, the date of effectiveness of the scheme will be July 1, 2014 and the base year will be 2013. The veterans had been demanding that the scheme be implemented from April 1, 2014.


But the biggest sticking point is the time duration for equalisation of pension. While the government draft says equalisation of pension will take place every five years defence veterans have made it clear that it should happen every year and if that is not possible then at least once in two years.

In spite of being wounded in battle, Lieutenant Colonel AB Tarapore fought for six days before meeting a hero's death on the battlefield in the 1965 war.

A legend in the Indian Army, he is the highest ranking officer to be awarded the Param Vir Chakra.


His daughter Zarine M Boyce, who was 16 when her father died, remembers an extraordinary soldier and a father she lost too soon.

Archana Masih/Rediff.com met the hero's daughter at her Pune home. Read

Aylan Kurdi's father describes the moment his boys slipped away as the boat sank. Kurdi said that the boat's captain, a Turk, panicked when high waves battered the boat and jumped into the sea. The lifejackets the Kurdi family carried were lost when the boat capsized.


"I took over and started steering, the waves were so high and the boat flipped," Aylan's father said. "I was holding my wife's hand. My children slipped away from my hands. We tried to hold on to the boat. Everyone was screaming in pitch darkness. Read more

And in the Sheena Bora case, her father, Siddhartha Das reaches Khar Police Station, where he will be questioned.

A wholly new perspective on the migrant 'crisis' that EU leaders say is the 'biggest challenge ever".


Kenneth Roth from the The Human Rights Watch, writes: "This "wave of people" is more like a trickle when considered against the pool that must absorb it. The European Union's population is roughly 500 million. The latest estimate of the numbers of people using irregular means to enter Europe this year via the Mediterranean or the Balkans is approximately 340,000. In other words, the influx this year is only 0.068 percent of the EU's population. Considering the EU's wealth and advanced economy, it is hard to argue that Europe lacks the means to absorb these newcomers."

Do read

The man who drove off with a Harley Davidson from a showroom in Hyderabad on Tuesday is an employee of state-owned oil major ONGC and a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, the police say.


NDTV reports that T Kiran, believed to be 30, was caught last night in Mumbai.


The police say his father has served in the army and stays in Hyderabad. The police tracked him down with the help of CCTV footage and call records.


Kiran allegedly walked into a showroom in Hyderabad's upscale Banjara Hills and filled a form before taking a bike for a "test drive". Every detail on that form was fake, say the police, including his name - Tahir Ali.


The bike that he took, a Harley Davidson Street 750, is the cheapest in the stable. Its ex-showroom price is Rs. 4.32 lakh. The most expensive model in India is the Street Glide Special, which costs Rs. 29.91 lakh.


CCTV images show the alleged thief starting the bike while a showroom employee watches, picking up speed and vanishing into traffic. Before the theft, he allegedly went to an ATM to withdraw money. He also bought a helmet on the way to the showroom, which is owned by a leader of Andhra Pradesh's ruling Telugu Desam Party.

Hitting out at media for "ignoring" significant events while choosing to focus on Sheena Bora murder case, Shiv Sena today wondered whether media has justified its role as fourth pillar of democracy and if it is a true reflection of people's thoughts.


The party came down heavily on the media for overlooking the 50th anniversary of the country's 1965 war victory and being "deaf" towards the plight of Vidarbha and Marathwada regions which are reeling under severe drought.


"While covering the Indrani case, the media ignored many other incidents that took place. The 50th anniversary of the 1965 Indo-Pak war was ignored. If the media ignored the supreme sacrifices made by our jawans to win the war, can media be called a reflection of people's thoughts?" the Sena asked in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'.


"The media is giving minute details of what Indrani ate, drank in the lockup and whether she slept or not. There is a competition on this between media houses. At the same time, Vidarbha and Marathwada are reeling under severe drought conditions and people and cattle there are dying. But nobody hears their screams," it said.


Taunting the media, the Shiv Sena said it seems like terror-related problems have ended, separatists in Jammu and Kashmir have given up their war against India and Pakistan has stopped ceasefire violations.


"It seems no jawan is being killed by Pakistanis now and no civilian is getting hurt. It seems all the problems of school students and teachers in Mumbai have been sorted out and problems related to food, clothing and shelter have ended and the only entertainment left now is Indrani's case," the Sena quipped.


Pointing out important issues like corruption drought situation, the ruling alliance partner said, "Poor people are selling their children for money and activists are being murdered. The media is only concentrating on the Sheena murder case."


"In such a situation, can a confused and a deaf media be called the fourth pillar of democracy?" the party asked.

A 22-year-old, who has become the new poster boy of protests in India, has announced plans for a 10-day march through major cities in the western state of Gujarat to press for his controversial demand that the Patels - widely considered to be among India's most affluent communities - be given better access to government jobs and education through the quota system. 
Read more

Aylan and Galip Kurdi: Everything we know about drowned Syrian refugee boys. Read

A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officer was today injured when naxals attacked him at a weekly market in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Dantewada district, police said.


Assistant Commandant B K Malik, belonging to CRPF's 111 battalion, was attacked by naxals with sharp-edged weapons at Palnar village weekly market under Kuwakonda police station limits at around 10 am, Dantewada Additional Superintendent of Police Ramkrishna Sahu said.


The paramilitary official was at the market, along with other jawans, when suddenly ultras, dressed as villagers, attacked him. Before his subordinates could understand the situation, the rebels escaped from the spot taking cover of the crowd, the ASP said.


Soon after being informed, police personnel were rushed to the spot and the injured official was shifted to Dantewada for treatment, he said. Meanwhile, a combing operation has been launched in the region to nab the attackers, he added.

Priyadarshi Mishra, a Biju Janata Dal MLA, took on Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the Odisha assembly on August 27, and declared that Bengal does not have the moral authority to claim the rasgulla as a Bengali dessert. Mishra explained to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com why the syrupy sweet masterpiece is from Odisha. Read

A cartoonist from Qatar also tweeted saying, "#Khartoon - I Hope Humanity Finds a Cure for Visas" 

Mahnaz Yazdani posted this photo on Facebook. Source Mahnaz Yazdani.

Steve Dennis tweeted this picture saying, "How his story should have ended..." 

Artists from around the world pay tribute to Aylan Kurdi, the 3-year-old boy, who drowned off Turkey. The images of the toddlers lifeless body on a Turkish beach have reverberated across the globe, stirring public outrage and embarrassing political leaders as far away as Canada, where authorities had rejected an asylum application from the boys relatives.

Aylan, pictured facedown in red T-shirt and shorts, is a Syrian Kurd from Kobani, a town near the Turkish border that has witnessed months of heavy fighting between Islamic State and Syrian Kurdish forces.


In this picture, artist Azzam Daaboul illustrated the death of the Syrian toddler saying, "We are losing ourselves as humans, and the people will die around the borders".

Just in: Supreme Court judge U U Lalit recuses himself from hearing a plea against the removal of Rohini Salian as the prosecutor in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case. Lalit said he represented certain accused in the matter.


The court is hearing a PIL by former bureaucrat-turned-social activist Harsh Mander seeking to bring back Salian as special prosecutor to lead the the CBI's case in Malegaon bomb blast case. Salian was removed from the case for refusing to go "soft" on the accused.

The apex court bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu directed the hearing of Mander's plea along with that of the Malegaon blasts victims after senior counsel Indira Jaising mentioned the matter on Wednesday.


Mander in his PIL while referring to an earlier interview by Rohini Salian wherein she had alleged that she was pressured by the NIA to go soft in the Malegaon case has sought court's intervention for a fair trial.


The PIL has alleged that NIA was acting under the instructions of its political masters.


Mander's PIL would heard along with the petitions by victims of the 2008 blasts seeking court's intervention in the matter.


Malegaon in 2008 was rocked by blasts which claimed six lives and left more than 100 injured.

A double suicide bombing has killed 19 people and wounded 143 in northern Cameroon, where soldiers are battling Boko Haram fighters from Nigeria, officials say.

A wooden boat crammed with migrant workers who were headed back to Indonesia capsized Thursday off Malaysia's western coast, killing at least 14 people, a maritime official said.

Nepal Airlines, the national carrier of the Himalayan country, is returning to Mumbai from tomorrow after exiting nine years ago, with two direct weekly flights to Kathmandu.

Two pots containing ancient coins dating back to the 10th century AD were today unearthed during foundation work for a building at Veeraganur village in the district, an official said.

Imagine a parade showing off China's most recent global accomplishments, highlighting the progress made in the 70 years since World War Two.

A medium-intensity earthquake measuring 4.4 on the Richter Scale hit Rajasthan late tonight. The tremor which shook the north-western state of India at 11.27 pm had its epicentre at Sikar in Rajasthan, according to National Seismological Centre, a unit of Ministry of Earth Sciences. 

Scuffles have broken out west of the Hungarian capital, Budapest, after police tried to force migrants off a train at a refugee camp.

Infant death toll mounts to 63 in Cuttack hospital
Indrani 'admits' to role in Sheena murder; Peter quizzed again
PM to interact with students on eve of Teacher's day
Ex-DCW chief calls for ban on condom ad starring Sunny Leone
Internal security issues dominate RSS meet