Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today denied describing Ishrat Jahan, who was killed in an encounter in Gujarat, as a "daughter of Bihar" and threatened to sue the media for "putting words into his mouth."


"Show me any piece of evidence that I described Ishrat Jahan as daughter of Bihar?" Kumar told reporters on the sidelines of the 'Janata Ke Darbar Mein Mukhya Mantri' programme. "I have been perusing through records and news clippings to ascertain if I ever used this (describing Ishrat Jahan as a daughter of Bihar). After doing necessary ground work, I will initiate legal action against the media, electronic as well print, for putting words in my mouth to this effect," he said. "I am very guarded in using words and making comments on anything, and will not tolerate this of putting words in my mouth to defame me," the Bihar Chief Minister said.


In the wake of David Coleman Headley testifying Ishrat Jahan as a terrorist, the BJP had dug Kumar's reported old comment describing Jahan, born in Bihar, as a "daughter of Bihar" to hit out at him. The BJP leaders have on several occasions used the narration to accuse Kumar of appeasing a particular community as part of vote bank politics.

The Andhra Pradesh government today decided to pay Rs 25 lakh as ex-gratia to the family of Sepoy Mustaq Ahmed who was killed in the recent Siachen Avalanche.

The decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting here, chaired by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

A member of Ahmed's family will also be given a government job, a communication from the Chief Minister's Office said. The Cabinet also paid homage to Ahmed during the meeting, it said.


Ahmed, who hails from Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, was one of the 10 Army personnel killed in the Siachen Avalanche earlier this month. His body was taken to Nandyal in Kurnool district this evening and would be buried in his native Parnapalli village with police honors tomorrow.

The police custody of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested last week on charges of sedition, has been extended by two days. Today, Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi Kanhaiya Kumar did raise anti-national slogans in the campus, and that there was irrefutable proof against him. He also said that the police are looking into the content of various tweets which were "blasphemous and objectionable'.


"Kanhaiya Kumar had joined the meeting in the campus where anti-national slogans were raised. He also raised these slogans," Bassi told the media.


Kumar, who is with the CPI-affiliated All India Students Federation (AISF), has denied the charge.


Bassi said Kumar's interrogation was still on and further action would be taken after the investigation gets completed.


He also claimed to have identified students who were also part of the JNU campus meeting on Kashmir on February 9 and were on the run. Kumar was arrested on February 12 on charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy for allegedly raising anti-national slogans at a meeting to mark the anniversary of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's execution.

Delhi HC to hear plea seeking NIA probe in sedition case in which JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar has been arrested tomorrow. 

Army chief of staff General Dalbir Singh spends a few minutes with his men, presumably for some pep talk, in the aftermath of the 10 deaths. 

Army chief General Dalbir Singh pays his respects before the bodies of the nine soldiers martyred at the Siachen glacier. The bodies will then be transported to their home towns.

President Pranab Mukherjee has approved the dismissal of Viswa Bharati Vice Chancellor Sushanta Dattagupta, the first instance of sacking of the VC of a Central University, HRD ministry officials said.

Man beaten up by BJP MLA OP Sharma and his supporters identified as Ameeque Jamai of Communist Party of India, says ANI. NDTV however reports that the man was a JNU student.

Sharma however denied he was beating the man, and said, "Jo Pakistan Zindabad ke naare laga raha tha usko hum pakad rahe the, maar nahi rhe the. We had held a man who was shouting pro Pakistan slogans, we were not beating him up."


Teachers and students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University and journalists were attacked and threatened at a Delhi court today as dozens of policemen watched.


The violence erupted just before a JNU student arrested for sedition was to be produced. On camera, a large group of around 50 is seen shouting slogans of "Long Live India, Down With JNU" and manhandling people.

BJP MLA OP Sharma beats up an unidentified man outside Delhi's Patiala House court. That's the court where JNU students' union leader Kanhaiya Kumar was produced today.


Pic: The man in the blue suit is BJP MLA OP Sharma.

Teachers and students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University and journalists were attacked and threatened at a Delhi court today as dozens of policemen watched, reports NDTV.


The violence erupted just before a JNU student arrested for sedition was to be produced. On camera, a large group of around 50 is seen shouting slogans of "Long Live India, Down With JNU" and manhandling people.


The policemen did nothing to stop the unruly group. JNU teachers and students were attacked allegedly by lawyers and forced to leave the courtroom.

Journalists were also beaten and their mobiles were snatched.


The clashes took place just before arrested student Kanhaiya Kumar was to be produced. Kumar, the chief of the JNU students' union, was arrested on Friday by plainclothesmen on campus for allegedly participating in the Afzal Guru event on February 9, in which anti-India slogans were allegedly raised.


"He gave an anti-national speech and was part of the unlawful assembly where anti-national slogans and speeches took place," Delhi Police chief BS Bassi said.The Left and other opposition parties like the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party have called the sedition charge excessive and demanded the student's release.

A spot of embarrassment for Congress media in-charge Randeep Surjewala. While making a statement on the JNU protests, Surjewala addresses Parliament attacker Afzal Guru, with the suffix 'ji'.


"Agar humara prajatantra, maulik adhikaaron aur dushman ko bhi sampoorna nyay dene mein vishwas atoot na hota toh Afzal Guru-ji ko jo ugravaadi hai aur SC humle mein jo doshi tha, usko poori nyay pranali ke anuroop faansi na dete," he said.


Surjewala later said that he withdraws the word, but the intent was clear that India is strong enough to punish through due process of law even a terrorist like Afzal Guru. "Out of the 20 times I spoke his name (Afzal Guru), once on account of flow there ws an error or slip of tongue," he said.


An hour ago, a fight erupted inside a Delhi court today just before a hearing on Jawaharlal Nehru University student Kanhaiya Kumar, who was arrested last week over an event held in support of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Why are Dalits protesting against hangings in Hyderabad?
Why is the focus on Muslims in JNU?
Why are the students insisting on representation from marginalised communities when they are being judged by a committee?
The fact is that India reserves the death penalty mostly for Dalits and Muslims, says Aakar Patel.

Must read on Rediff.com.

Praveen Swami @praveenswami  I find the anti-India slogans shouted by some JNU students repugnant (and juvenile). Locking them up is also repugnant (and juvenile)

Fight erupts in Delhi court ahead of hearing on JNU student Kanhaiya Kumar arrested for sedition. During the scuffle, one person claiming to be a lawyer slapped a JNU student.

When Snapdeal employee Dipti Sarna went to work every day, little did she know she was being followed by her future abductor Devender Kumar, who stalked her for over a year after first spotting her in the Metro.

Hindustan Times reports that Sarna told the police she had no inkling someone could be following her as the Metro was always crowded and she boarded the ladies compartment.

I remained puzzled throughout the abduction as to where and why I was being taken. Also it was strange that even after abducting me, they did not harm me, said Sarna.

The reason for letting her go unharmed after 36 hours: The prime accused wanted her to fall in love with him much like Shah Rukh Khan from the 1993 romantic thriller Darr.

He told the police he fell in love with her when he first saw her, and meticulously planned the abduction, taking care to even find out her favourite brand of chips.

He bought two autos as he knew Sarna took shared autos on her way home every day. He also lured the other accused in the case, saying she was a top businesswoman who would guarantee a ransom of Rs 10-12 crore.


He lived in an alternate universe, police said. He and the other abductors gave Sarna food and took care of her, with no ransom demands made. The main Darr-inspired accused has a reward of Rs 20,000 on his head, officials said.


The alleged abductors whisked Sarna away in an auto last Wednesday when she was on her way home in Ghaziabad from the Vaishali Metro Station. They allegedly made her walk for around 10 kilometers, kept her in a sugarcane field before before leaving her at a suburban railway station near Narela.

As over two thousand students and teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University gathered peacefully on Saturday to protest police action on campus and the arrest of the President of the Students' Union, a potentially dangerous stampede was set in motion at the front, when at Rahul Gandhi's entrance, media people with cameras rushed unheedingly into the thickly clustered people seated on the ground. The situation was exacerbated by a further push into that space by about fifteen Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists holding black flags and shouting slogans against Rahul Gandhi. Within seconds, however, the students conducting the meeting had organized a human chain to hold back and corral the media and the ABVP safely into one corner, and the human chain was then immediately taken up by the hundreds of teachers present. Until Rahul Gandhi left, the handful of ABVP activists continued their slogans, but they could only be heard by those seated in their immediate vicinity.

Read Nivedita Menon's piece here.

Left parties today said they will "fight out" any threat and are "not worried" about being labelled as "anti-national" for their stance on the JNU row after CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury allegedly received threat calls over the issue.


Condemning the episode, the JD(U), which has been supporting the students, termed the alleged threats to Yechury as an "attack" on the freedom of speech and likened the developments to a "new kind" of Emergency.


"All this (threat calls), we are prepared to face, we are not worried. We are not worried about being labelled as anti-national. We are prepared to face this and we will fight it out," CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat said. Karat said the threat calls and the attack on CPI(M) headquarters here are "responses" by right-wing outfits to the Left party's "firm" stand against "assault" on the students' community in JNU and "government-sponsored imposition of Hindutva ideology" on the campuses.


"So, obviously, those forces are angry with us and this is what they try to do at our office," he added. CPI national secretary D Raja, who too had claimed to have received similar calls over his support to the protesters, said the parties will take up the issue formally with the government now.


"I do get threat calls. When we met the Home Minister, I did raise the issue with him that we are getting anonymous calls, threatening to shoot us down. All these things are happening. So, we will be taking it up formally with the government," Raja added. JD(U) Parliamentarian KC Tyagi likened the entire episode to the days of Emergency.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet theory of competitive federalism has taken a new turn.

Recently, Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar was in Chennai to inaugurate a Haryana government festival.  Khattar was reportedly embarrassed he could speak very little Tamil despite Haryana's commitment to teaching the language in the state. In fact, Haryana has employed 45 teachers to teach Tamil in municipal schools.  Khattar said he was happy to know that Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalitha speaks fluent Hindi.


The Haryana CM commented that PM Modi would be interested to know he was in Chennai competing for Tamil Nadu's largesse. Khattar added that Chief Minister of Telangana K Chandrasekhar Rao would be in Haryana for two days.


Nothing unusual in that except that such tours by CMs are common enough in the NDA government, but in the UPA regime none of the Congress CMs bothered to get out of their states.

In the wake of the massive protests at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, which have taken a political turn after the arrest of a student for sedition, BJP chief Amit Shah attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a blog. Highlights.

-- Some Left-influenced students raised anti-India slogans. The Congress has taken up the issue out of frustration.


-- Has Rahul Gandhi lent his voice to separatists in the country? Does he want another Partition of the country?


-- The kind of statements that Rahul Gandhi and his party colleagues have delivered at the campus proves that there is no place for national interest in their thinking.


-- Rahul Gandhi hobnobbing with anti-national elements at JNU. Is this his definition of nationalism?


-- I ask Rahul Gandhi, was 1975 (Emergency) a demonstration of Congress commitment to democracy? Was Mrs.(Indira) Gandhi not Hitler-like?

Read the blog here.

DMK leaders are likely to establish contacts with CPI and CPM to get them on board for a Bihar-type of mahagathbandhan in Tamil Nadu. The question is, will Sitaram Yechuri oblige the DMK? In the event something like the Peoples' Front happens with the DMK, (which is headed by Vaiko but the CPI and CPM are key players), Tamil Nadu politics will once again settle down till the poll dates are announced. Till then 'Aaya Ram Gaya Ram' will be active.

DMK chief M Karunanidhi's son MK Alagiri will head to New Delhi by the end of the month. Speculation is rife that he may get an audience with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also BJP president Amit Shah. Alagiri is expected to open up a Pandora's box on the gossip surrounding MK Stalin and his half-sister Kanimozhi and their fight for the legacy of Karunanidhi. We can tell you that New Delhi is waiting.

A profile of the nine bravehearts who died in an avalanche in Siachen on February 3, 2015. Read

The arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar and the crackdown on political dissent at JNU suggest that we are living under a government that is both rabidly malign and politically incompetent.

It is using nationalism to crush constitutional patriotism, legal tyranny to crush dissent, political power to settle petty scores, and administrative power to destroy institutions. The instigation of this crackdown was the alleged chanting of some anti-national slogans at JNU, and a meeting to mark the death anniversary of Afzal Guru. But the government's disproportionate response smacks of tyranny of the highest order. It ordered the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, whose speech had nothing anti-national about it.

Read Pratap Bhanu Mehta's piece on the JNU protests.

Zero-tolerance for Afzal Guru protesters in Delhi, undying zeal for a deal in Srinagar with those who believe he was wrongly hanged.


The BJP has swooped hard on "seditious" Guru activists in the capital, but remains intent on power ambitions in Jammu and Kashmir with the PDP, which considers Guru's execution a miscarriage of justice. BJP general secretary and Kashmir interlocutor Ram Madhav is slated to travel to Srinagar for "government formation" talks with PDP boss Mehbooba Mufti.


But the odds those talks will proceed in Madhav's mandated direction are dimming by the hour. The ghost of Guru has exhumed itself to startle the already stranded PDP-BJP alliance. Read more

A report from the Argentine doctors' organization, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, challenges the theory that the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil is the cause of the increase in the birth defect microcephaly among newborns.


The increase in this birth defect, in which the baby is born with an abnormally small head and often has brain damage, was quickly linked to the Zika virus by the Brazilian Ministry of Health.


However, according to the Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, the Ministry failed to recognise that in the area where most sick people live, a chemical larvicide that produces malformations in mosquitoes was introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014.


This poison, Pyriproxyfen, is used in a State-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitoes. Read more

Just in: Wreath laying ceremony for the nine soldiers who died in the Siachen Glacier begins in New Delhi. The 10th soldier, Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Kappad, who was rescued alive, died on Thursday.  


The Indian Army on Saturday successfully managed to move the remaining mortals of the nine bravehearts, who were buried alive by an avalanche, from Siachen to the base camp in Leh.

"Exploiting very narrow window of fair weather army avn heptrs, in a daring act, succeeded in moving mortal remains of 9 bravehearts. Mortal remains moved from northern glacier to airstrip close to base camp," The Additional Directorate General of Public Information for Indian Army (ADG PI) tweeted.

With the weather continuing to be extremely adverse, the bodies have been moved to the Military Hospital in Hunder for embalming and custody.

After certain formalities, a quick wreath laying ceremony will be done following which, all mortal remains will be transported to Delhi from Thoise in an IAF aircraft.

"In Delhi, another wreath laying ceremony is planned, following which the bodies of the nine martyrs will be transported to their home towns," said the Northern Command in a statement.

JNU protests' updatge: University's probe report on February 25 on event held in support of Afzal Guru last week, says vice-chancellor. JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar to be produced before a Delhi court today.

The response of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government to slogans shouted by a group of leftist Jawaharlal Nehru University students celebrating Afzal Guru and Pakistan and India's imminent disintegration was led by Rajnath Singh. Acting on complaints by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and a BJP member of parliament, Maheish Girri, the home minister warned that "[i]f anyone raises anti-India slogans and tries to raise question on nation's unity and integrity, they will not be spared. Stringent action must be taken against those who raised anti-India slogans in JNU".


He ordered Delhi's police commissioner, B.S. Bassi, to intervene. Bassi's men entered the campus, searched hostel rooms, instructed the university authorities to install video cameras on campus and arrested the president of the JNU students union, Kanhaiya Kumar. He was charged with sedition, a crime punishable by life imprisonment.


This near-lunatic overreaction to student recklessness is rooted in a paranoid style of nationalism that needs to be understood.


Mukul Kesavan on the JNU vs Rajnath Singh. Read

Rockers Eagles of Death Metal returned to the stage in Stockholm, Sweden to perform their first full gig since terrorists opened fire at their show in Paris, France in November last year. Jesse Hughes and his bandmates were midway through their gig at the Bataclan concert hall on November 13 when gunmen stormed the building and fired at the audience, killing 89 revellers, reported Rolling Stone magazine.


The musicians, who escaped without injury, postponed the remainder of their Nos Amis tour in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, which was part of a wider attack on the city, leaving a total of 130 people dead. They returned to the French capital for the first time since the attacks to join U2 for a special appearance at the AccorHotels Arena in December last year, when the two bands joined forces to sing a rendition of Patti Smith's "People Have The Power", and ended their set with a collaboration of Eagles of Death Metal's own song, "I Love You All the Time".


The band announced plans to resume its European tour days later, and on Saturday, Hughes and company were back in action at Stockholm's Debaser Medis, where they played a 17-song set, including a cover of Duran Duran's "Save a Prayer". Eagles of Death Metal are slated to head back to Paris on Tuesday, when they will play at the Olympia venue. Fans who were at the Bataclan show in November have been offered free tickets to the new concert.

Authorities today imposed restrictions in parts of the city following a strike call by separatists against the killing of two civilians allegedly in firing by security forces during a violent protest yesterday. Shops and other business establishments remained closed due to the call given by separatists groups including both factions of Hurriyat Conference.


The two youths, including a girl, were killed and several others injured as protesters clashed with police in Pulwama yesterday. They were protesting against an encounter in Kakapora area of the district in which a militant was killed.


Authorities have deployed police and paramilitary personnel in strength in the south Kashmir town to maintain law and order, a police official said today. He said there was no report of any untoward incident in the area since this morning.

"JNU has been a controversial university for quite some time. Professor Nurul Hasan, as HRD Minister, made sure that it became a bastion of the Left. Faculty who had alternate views were not hired or encouraged and sometimes hounded out. Wherever the Left has tried to assert itself, it has sought to infiltrate and control universities to ensure it dominates intellectual discourse. Based as it is on an exclusivist centralised dogma, it left no room for new thoughts and vibrant debates and sought to shut out all voices except its dogma. The Left Front rule in West Bengal is a classic example of the capture of universities and their decline as centres of vibrant intellectual thought. Today, universities in West Bengal are a pale shadow of what they once were."

Read Mohandas Pai on the JNU protests.

The Delhi office of the Communist Party of India - Marxist allegedly received calls late on Sunday night threatening General Secretary Sitaram Yechury for his support in the protests at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. 

Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been arrested and charged with sedition for allegedly raising anti-India slogans, will be produced before a Delhi court today as his three-day police remand ends on Monday.

2 armed men opened fire outside Loreto Entally School in Kolkata, injuring one passerby. The men fled the scene on a motorbike when witnesses tried to catch them. 

Five accused have been arrested in the abduction of 24-year-old Dipti Sarna, who alleged that she had been kidnapped by a few men at knife point while she was on her way back home in an auto-rickshaw. The Snapdeal employee, who returned home safely to her family on Friday, during questioning revealed to the police how the men blindfolded her at knife point and thereafter bundled her in a car and ferried her to some unknown place.

Saturday was supposed to be Maharashtra's turn to shine during the Make In India Week but instead, the night ended in a hot mess, with a massive fire engulfing the stage at Girgaum Chowpatty. Fire officials suspect the cause may have been a short circuit or pyrotechnics gone wrong. Maharashtra CM Fadnavis said a comprehensive inquiry was ordered into the fire and other Make in India events will not be affected.

Mumbaikars, gear up for a rough Monday. Almost 90 per cent of rickshaws have gone on a one-day strike today. Unhappy with the Regional Transport Office's decision to raise renewal charges for auto and taxi permits, the auto union has gone on strike. 

Indo-British filmmaker Asif Kapadia has won the BAFTA for his poignant documentary 'Amy' on late British singer Amy Winehouse.  Kapadia's Oscar nominated film beat "Cartel Land", "He Named Me Malala", "Listen to Me Marlon" and "Sherpa" to win the honour. 

Epic survival tale The Revenant took top honours including best film at Britain's BAFTA film awards, boosting its status as a favourite for Oscar success later this month. Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu scooped best director for the picture, and Leonardo DiCaprio won best actor for his leading role as grizzled trapper Hugh Glass. 

Delhi Police has prepared a chargesheet holding climate scientist R K Pachauri guilty of outraging the modesty of a woman, sexual harassment, stalking and criminal intimidation after a year-long investigation during which witnesses were questioned and phone communication details were examined.