Congress leader Kamal Nath has written to party president Sonia Gandhi requesting her to relieve him of the charge of Punjab in view of the controversy over allegations of involvement in anti-Sikh riots against him.

He also resigned as the party general secretary.

"Kamal Nath has tendered his resignation as AICC general
secretary. The Congress president has accepted it," party spokesman Randip Surjewala said.

Nath wants to be relieved to ensure that attention is not diverted from real issues.

'Have been hurt by developments in the past few days where unnecessary controversy has been created around 1984 riots,' Nath wrote.

"Till 2005 not single public stmnt or FIR was made against me and first time my name was mentioned in any forum was 21 years after 1984. This canard is nothing but a cheap political ploy to gain traction ahead of the elections," he wrote.

Earlier, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Shiromani Akali Dal had claimed that Nath was involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi.

AAP leader H S Phoolka alleged that Nath was a part of the mob that attacked the Rakab Ganj Sahib Gurdwara in Delhi on November 1, 1984. Two Sikhs were also burnt to death in the attack.

The Congress leader dismissed it saying he was 'absolved' of all charges by the Nanavati Inquiry Commission.

Russia's foreign ministry today summoned France's ambassador to Moscow over the detention of 43 Russian fans in southern France after street violence in Marseille.

The move came after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov branded the action by the French police 'an absolutely unacceptable incident'.

The ministry said it summoned French ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert over the detention of the Russian fans who were travelling from Marseille to Lille, particularly the 'discriminatory and indiscriminate measures against Russian citizens'.

The Russian ministry accused French authorities of failing to notify its diplomats of the action and keeping 43 people locked in the bus for hours, calling on France to 'make a decision on their fates as soon as possible'.

Gunfire erupted in downtown Oakland near a vigil for two drowning victims, leaving a 16-year-old girl dead and sending people running for cover in the days after the worst mass shooting in the history of United States.

Three other people ranging from their mid-teens to early 20s were wounded and in stable condition after the shooting on Wednesday, police said.

The girl died at a hospital.

Witnesses reported that two gunmen on foot opened fire along half a city block.

A Hindu lecturer today survived an assassination attempt in southwestern Bangladesh when suspected Islamists barged into his home and attacked him with lethal weapons, wounding him seriously, the latest in a series of attacks on minorities and secular activists.

The attackers stormed the residence of Ripon Chakrabarty, a Mathematics lecturer at the Nazimuddin Government University College in Madaripur, and attacked him with lethal weapons this evening, police said.

The residents at the neighbourhood grabbed one of the attackers while others fled from the scene.

"The detained attacker is now being grilled in our custody. We suspect he could be a member of a militant group," Madaripur police superintendent Sarwar Hossain said.

A police sub-inspector told reporters that three assailants knocked at Ripon's house and attacked him soon after he opened the door.

Ripon is being treated at a state-run hospital in southwestern Barisal. Suspected Islamists killed a number of secular activists, four Hindus and other minorities across the country in recent months, prompting authorities to launch a nationwide anti-militant clampdown since Friday.

JUST IN: Petrol price hiked by 5 paise per litre, diesel by Rs 1.26, with effect from midnight, tonight.

Oscar Pistorius will be sentenced on July 6 for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, the judge in the High Court in Pretoria said today at the end of a three-day court hearing.

The authorities in Florida searched a lake at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa early today after an alligator snatched a two-year-old boy from the shore.

The mission was still considered a search and rescue operation even though the toddler had been missing since late yesterday, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said at a sunrise news conference.

"We determined this two-year-old child was playing at the edge of the water, a foot or so into the water, when this alligator came up and attacked the child," he said.

"The father did his best. Tried to rescue the child, however, to no avail." The child belonged a family of five from the Midwestern state of Nebraska that was relaxing on the shore of a man-made lake at the upscale Disney resort hotel, Demings said.

The lake is part of a Disney complex that includes another hotel. Both are connected to the Magic Kingdom, one of four theme parks at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. "We have not been able to locate that child," Demings said. "We will continue the search throughout the course of the evening."

Drinking very hot coffee and other drinks "probably" causes cancer of the oesophagus, a UN agency said today, but lifted suspicion from a cup of joe at "normal serving temperatures".

For some types of cancer, there were hints that coffee may even be beneficial, said the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) - but not if consumed hotter than 65 degrees Celsius.

A review of over 1,000 studies concluded that drinking "very hot" beverages was "probably carcinogenic to humans," said the agency. "It doesn't matter what the liquid is. What matters is the temperature," said epidemiologist Dana Loomis, who took part in the review of the world's most popular hot drinks. The IARC looked at the full complement of published scientific literature considering if there was a cancer link to coffee or mate, a South American herbal infusion that is also popular in the Middle East. Both had been classified as "possibly cancerogenic to humans" since 1991, when the last evaluation was done. But evidence gathered since could link neither drink to an elevated cancer risk, said IARC, an agency of the UN's World Health Organization (WHO). Only when drunk hotter than 65 C did any association arise with cancer of the gullet - the pipe that transports food and fluids from the throat to the stomach, it added. "Studies in places such as China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Turkey and South America, where tea or mate is traditionally drunk very hot (at about 70 C) found that the risk of oesophageal cancer increased with the temperature at which the beverage was drunk," said the IARC. But there was good news for coffee drinkers. The analysis found that at "normal" temperatures, there was some data pointing to a lower risk of cancer of the uterus, liver and breast. Studies have also found that coffee had strong antioxidant effects and other possible health benefits. Taken together, the available data suggests "there is inadequate evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity of coffee drinking," said the agency.

Recent, inconclusive evidence suggests that Omar Mateen, who murdered 49 LGBT people and allies -- many of whom were Latino -- early Sunday morning, may himself have been a closeted, repressed gay man.

That evidence remains, at this time, patchy and unclear. But the clueless reaction to it among some conservatives illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of homophobia and their own role in propagating it. 
Read more

In line with equity market, the rupee today snapped its last 4-day losing streak against the American currency and recovered 12 paise to close at 67.15 per dollar on hopes of foreign capital inflows. The rupee opened slightly higher at Rs 67.25 per dollar against the yesterday's closing level of Rs 67.27.

J&K: Two grenade blasts in Shopian. One near police station and second at Batpora chowk. One civilian injured.

The International Organisation for Migration says more than 3,400 migrants died or were recorded as missing as they tried to cross borders around the globe in this year's first five months, over 80 per cent of them trying to reach Europe by sea.

The number is 12 per cent above the 2,780 deaths or disappearances recorded during the same period in 2015. Over the whole of last year, the IOM estimated Wednesday that 5,400 migrants died or were reported missing worldwide.

Frank Laczko, director of the IOM's Global Migration Data Analysis Centre in Berlin that tracks missing migrants, said the route between Northern Africa and Italy has become the world's most dangerous passage for migrants. In the last week of April alone, some 1,100 migrants died or went missing off Libya.

Udta Punjab leaked online, film's team manages to remove it online on war footing from torrent sites.

Oscar Pistorius shuffled without his prosthetic legs through a Pretoria court on Wednesday to demonstrate how vulnerable he is without his artificial limbs, an attempt by the athlete's defense team to avoid a long jail sentence for murder.

The 29-year-old Paralympian gold medalist faces a minimum 15-year jail term for the 2013 killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, for which state prosecutors say he has shown no remorse.

Pistorius, who sat with his head in his hands during the third day of sentencing hearings, says he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he fired four shots through a locked toilet door in his Pretoria home, killing her almost instantly.

The lower part of the athlete's legs were amputated when he was a baby, and he is known as "Blade Runner" for the carbon-fibre prosthetics he wore when racing.

Pistorius lawyer Barry Roux asked his client to walk in the court on his stumps to show the difficulty he faced while dealing with the threat of an intruder.

His body shaking with emotion, Pistorius then removed his prosthetics and stood on his stumps for five minutes in front of the court television camera, wiping tears from his face with a tissue.

"The accused was vulnerable because of his disability," Roux said, asking for a non-custodial sentence that included community service.

In response, prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked the court to display photos of Steenkamp's bloodied head and torso after the shooting.

Clement Freud, one of Britain's well-known broadcasters and the grandson of Sigmund Freud, has been accused of paedophilia in the UK dating back over 75 years.

The Vienna-born grandson of Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, is believed to have abused two girls between the late 1940s and 1970s. The revelations emerged in a documentary titled 'Exposure: Abused and Betrayed - A Life Sentence', to be broadcast on the UK's ITV channel.

"I just want to clear things up before I die...I want to die clean. Having been so hard on myself, trying to destroy myself so many times, you can't bury the truth forever, it needs to be heard," said Sylvia Woosley, one of the victims who first met Clement when she was 10 and was sent to live with him at 14 after her parents' marriage broke up.

"I don't want to take this to my tomb. I would like to just return to the child I was before I was molested physically, before I was introduced to that side of life too early," she added. A second woman, who wants to remain anonymous, claimed Clement abused her as a child and raped her when she was 18. Clement died at his home on 15 April 2009, nine days before his 85th birthday.

As a proud Muslim, I'd like to clear a few things up: this is what Allah would have thought of Orlando. Read

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved a Jammu and Kashmir government's proposal for vacating nearly 458 Kanal of land in army's possession for expansion of Kashmir University campus in Anantnag.

Highly-placed sources said the Prime Minister, after his return from the five-nation tour, had called a meeting on Kashmir during which he asked the Defence Ministry to hand over the 'High ground' in Anantnag to the state at the earliest so that the expansion plan of south campus of Kashmir University can be carried out.

During the meeting, the Prime Minister said the Centre was committed to all-round improvement of education in the state, official sources said. The army had in-principle been agreeable to vacating the land for quite sometime but a decision by its headquarters got delayed.

The latest deadline for vacating the land was March 31 which was agreed upon during a meeting chaired by state Governor N N Vohra.

Former Union Minister Arun Shourie today said RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan cannot be blamed for various "wrongs", including keeping the interest rates high, but made clear that he was against targeting of inflation as an objective of monetary policy.

"I was against this targeting of inflation as an  objective of monetary policy. We are too diverse, too many things happen in India... that is the root of the problem, not Raghuram Rajan," Shourie said.

"Everybody is saying he (Rajan) has kept the interest rates high, but what about the Parliament which passed the Act saying that the object of monetary policy is control of  inflation; targeting of inflation. That's the root cause of the problem," he said during the Corporate Real Estate Conference organised by CoreNet Global in Bengaluru.

He said Rajan cannot be blamed because he was just performing his duty by using at least four to five instruments that were legislated in Parliament to fight inflation.

The three lions guilty of killing three people near Gujarat's Gir sanctuary in separate incidents recently have been given a life term in a zoo. The police had taken 18 lions into custody for the killings, of which three were found guilty.

Forest officials said that the 'guilty' animals will be kept in a zoo for the rest of their life as punishment while others will be released back into the sanctuary.

The police took paw prints of the 'suspects' and also ordered a lab test of their excreta to pinpoint the real culprits.

"We think we have pinpointed the guilty lion, but we are still awaiting the results of nine more animals," JA Khan, Gujarat's chief conservator of forests, said.

In 2013, the Supreme Court had asked the Gujarat government to relocate some of the lions from Gir to Kuno Palpur wildlife sanctuary. The Gujarat government had then appealed against the verdict but the top court had turned down the appeal.

Animals Rights activist Gauri Maulekhi on Wednesday condemned the heart-rending incident where around 50 stray dogs were burnt alive by the residents of Keezhamur village in Tamil Nadu's Kancheepuram district and vowed to get the culprits arrested for this absolutely abhorable act.

Maulekhi told ANI this particular incident is as sick as it can get."We do not have to become dogs with dogs. If an animal has killed a goat, there is a method to go about it. You cannot feed them pesticides and put kerosene on them. What kind of a jungle law are we following? This is absolutely abhorable and we are going to get these people arrested today,' she added.

Expressing disgrace over the matter, Maulekhi said there is a clear procedure laid down in law."These dogs have to be picked up, sterilized, vaccinated and sent back. That is the responsibility of the urban development departments. They have failed and not done anything even to uphold the Supreme Court's orders," she added.

Appealing for calm in the wake of the desecration of a temple in Jammu city by a "mentally disturbed" person last evening, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said she does not want the state to be "hijacked" by extremist forces.

"Jammu and Kashmir is the most secular place and I don't want it to be hijacked by extremist forces," Mehbooba said while addressing a function at Jammu University today.

She said some elements were "hell-bent" on creating communal tension in the region but the people of Jammu, irrespective of their religion, must unite and fight the nefarious designs of such forces.

"Separatism and communalism are the two faces of a same coin and they ultimately divide the society and the country," she said. An ancient temple situated in Roop Nagar area of Jammu was desecrated by a "mentally disturbed" person yesterday, triggering protests across the city.

Protestors had last night set three vehicles on fire and clashed with police after the news spread. Authorities have suspended mobile internet services in Jammu region as a precautionary measure.

The prime accused in the Mathura violence case Chandan Bose and his wife were today arrested from a village in Parsurampur area here, police said.

Chandan Bose, stated to be the second in command of Ram Vriksh Yadav, was arrested this morning along with his wife by a police team of Mathura from Caithwalia village, Superintendent of Police Kripa Shankar Singh said. Ram Vriksh Yadav, the alleged leader of Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi, which was said to be behind the violence, had died in the clashes with police.

The police officer said both of them will be sent to Mathura. Additional Director General (law and order) of Uttar Pradesh Police Daljeet Singh had earlier said that Ram Vriksh Yadav, Chandan Bose, Girish Yadav and Rakesh Gupta are the main culprits in the case.

Twenty-nine people, including then SP (City) Mukul Dwivedi and Station House Officer (Farah) Santosh Yadav, were killed during clashes between police and encroachers at Jawahar Bagh in Mathura on June 2.

JUST IN: Rebel Chhattisgarh Congress leader Ajit Jogi resigns from primary membership of the party.

Just In: Cabinet approves raising retirement age of Non-Teaching and Public Health Specialists of Central Health Service from 62 to 65 years

Sensex rebounds 330.63 points to close at 26,726.34; Nifty reclaims 8,200 mark, climbs 97.75 points to 8,206.60.

JUST IN: Internal Home Ministry probe report on missing files on Ishrat Jahan case submitted. Only one file traced, two still missing

JUST IN: Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs clears 10 per cent stake sale in HUDCO.

Airline stocks today climbed up to 5 per cent after the much-awaited national civil aviation policy that seeks to strengthen regional connectivity and tap the sector's high growth potential was cleared by the Union Cabinet.

Shares of Spicejet soared 5.22 per cent, InterGlobe Aviation rose by 4.32 per cent and Jet Airways gained 2.91 per cent on BSE. Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said the policy is a "game changer" and that the country's aviation sector is poised to become the world's third largest by 2022.

The policy has been finalised after nearly eight months since the Ministry came out with the revised draft in October 2015 and follows many rounds of deliberations with stakeholders.

The NDA government had for the first time unveiled the policy draft in November 2014. Initially, the policy was expected to be finalised in the last financial year as certain proposals were to be in effect from April 1, 2016. However, the government had been moving back and forth on the policy seeking to sort out the differences among stakeholders including on 5/20 norm.

In Patna, the Congress finds a new hero in Bihar Minister Ashok Chaudhary after his twitter argument with HRD minister Smriti Irani.

Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani and Bihar Education Minister Ashok Choudhary were on Tuesday locked in a bitter war of words on Twitter after the Congress leader addressed her as dear.

Issues of etiquette in official communication also cropped up during the barrage of tweets unleashed against each other.

Choudhary in a tweet on Tuesday referred to the Human Resource Development minister as dear Smriti Irani ji and said that rather than focus on politics and speeches, she should pay attention to the New Education Policy.

Irani, who is currently touring Bihar, shot back asking Choudhary that since when did he begin addressing women as dear. Mahilaon ko dear keh ke kab se sambodhit karne lage Ashokji?

Choudhary, who is also the state president of Congress, responded that it was Not to disrespect but educate... Professional emails start with dear. In his tweet, he asked Irani to answer the real issue and not circle around it.

@AshokChoudhaary all my communications to you or any other person start with adarniya, but since you are now communicating allow me 1/3, Irani said in another tweet.

The senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader further told the Bihar minister that his states views on education policy had not been provided and neither did you in your one-on-one meeting with me give any suggestions.

She claimed that Bihar is possibly the only state which has not done grassroot consultations for the education policy.

Yadav, however, launched a counter-attack, tweeting, @smritiirani ji has learnt a lot from Modiji... Fake promises and shifting blames to others for non-delivery is lesson one in Sanghs book.

India today expressed concern over the "negative and incorrect" picture conveyed about Hinduism and Sikhism after a leading Malaysian university published an educational module depicting Hindus in India as unclean following which the varsity has issued an apology.


"We are concerned at negative and incorrect picture being conveyed about Hinduism and Sikhism. Hinduism and Sikhism are two great religions which India has given birth to," the High Commission of India in Malaysia said in a statement today.

Slides of the module by the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) appeared online enraging the minority ethnic Indian community and some others in this Muslim majority country.

The High Commission statement noted that Malaysia's Minister of Health, Deputy Minister of Education and others had condemned this incident.

"We also note the "utmost regret and deep remorse" conveyed by UTM on this incident and their assurance that such incident will not recur, the statement added. Among others, the module claimed that Islam had introduced civility to the lives of the Hindu community in India.

Another slide aimed at teaching the origins of Sikhism claimed that founder Guru Nanak had a poor understanding of Islam and had combined it with his surrounding Hindu lifestyle in forming the early foundation of the Sikh faith, Malay Mail online said yesterday.

The slides led to condemnation by the Malaysian Indian Progressive Association (MIPAS), which called for a retraction and apology from the university. Muslim majority Malaysia's 28 million population include 60 per cent Malays who are all Muslims, 25 per cent ethnic Chinese mostly Christians and Buddhists, and eight per cent ethnic Indians, a majority of whom are Hindus.

Many witnesses have spoken in the aftermath of the shooting about how they initially thought the noise of the gunfire was part of the show. But Imran Yousuf says he recognised it right away. Read more

Reports of a blast inside the Kollam collectorate, Kerala. Early reports say one person has been critically injured, in what is being believed to be a bomb blast. The bomb may have been placed in a jeep. 

The Maharashtra ATS gives a clean chit to former revenue minister of Maharashtra Eknath Khandse. The ATS has observed that no calls were made between Khadse and gangster Dawood Ibrahim as alleged by ethical hacker Manish Bhangale. In fact, the ATS may now file a case against him and has given him one month to explain his allegations.

The Bombay High Court yesterday raised several questions over the petition filed by Vadodara hacker Manish Bhangale against the former Revenue Minister. Bhangale in his petition has alleged that call records from Dawood's Karachi residence show that he was in frequent touch with a mobile number registered in the name of Khadse.

However, the division bench of the high court pointed several loopholes in the petition and directed the Bhangale's lawyers to amend it.

Orange, err saffron. Nagpur's rebranding exercise is throwing up mixed colours. Nagpur is home to the mandarin orange, the citrus fruit, as well as the headquarters of the RSS which is closely associated with the saffron colour. A drive launched by the civic body a few months ago to paint the city into a shade of the mandarin orange is yet to pick up. But a few buildings that picked up the brush resemble saffron, instead of a distinct orange, after being painted anew.

The Opposition parties have cast a disapproving eye, wondering whether a sweeping "saffronisation" drive is underway right under their noses. But the ruling BJP says it is unintentional. Unless the proportion is right, a mix of pink and yellow can whip up a saffron hue instead of the shade of mandarin. Read more

In a rare instance, the Home Ministry has asked an RTI applicant to prove he is an Indian before disclosing details about the one-member panel looking into the missing files related to the alleged fake encounter case of Ishrat Jahan.

Senior IAS officer BK Prasad, Additional Secretary in the Home Ministry, heads the inquiry panel.

The RTI application was filed with the Ministry seeking copies of reports submitted by the panel besides file notings related to extension in service given to Prasad.

"In this connection, it is requested that a proof of your Indian citizenship may please be provided," the Home Ministry said in its reply.

As per Right to Information Act, 2005, only Indian citizens can seek information.

Usually, a proof of citizenship is not required to file an application under the transparency law. In rare cases, a public information officer can seek proof of nationality in case he has doubt over citizenship of an applicant.

"It is a way to block free flow of information and transparency by the government. Seeking proof of Indian citizenship must be discouraged. The Home Ministry appears to delay the information sought from it," said RTI activist Ajay Dubey.

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) probe team on Wednesday reached Kairana to investigate allegations that Hindu families were forced to leave the town in western Uttar Pradesh because of extortion and threats.

Senior BJP leader Suresh Khanna led the team of MPs from the neighbouring districts to Kairana, about 100 km from Delhi, to find out the truth behind allegations that a large number of Hindus are being forced to leave Kairana.

The BJP's fact-finding team includes Dr Radhamohan Das Agarwal, Baghpat MP Dr Satpal Singh, Saharanpur MP RLP Sharma, Bulandshahr MP Dr Bhola Singh, Aligarh MP Satish Gautam, Aonla MP Dharmendra Kashyap and former Uttar Pradesh DGP Brij Lal.

In a report to the state government, the Shamli District Magistrate on Tuesday said that most migrations to Haryana, Delhi and other places in India happen for better jobs, education, and health facilities.

Assam: 26 killed and 8 injured as a bus falls into a gorge in Sonapur.

The problem of water scarcity in Maharashtra's Nashik has worsened as the district's 12 small and medium water reservoirs have dried up. There are total 23 water reservoirs in Nashik district, with 16 of medium and seven having major capacity.

In the last fortnight, there have no pre-monsoon showers, sources in district collector office said. As per official figures, till June 14, the stock in the district's reservoirs was 2,274 mcft, implying that only three per cent water remained in 11 dams.

Though we hear terms like 'caging', 'ghettoisation', 'walling off' etc. to describe the proposed composite townships, they fall short of adding up to any sort of meaningful argument against the plan to bring the KPs back to their homeland. Read more

Veteran actress Shabana Azmi is of the view that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) should neither censor nor certify movies, instead only classify them. Azmi's comment came in wake of the censorship controversy that surrounded Bollywood film "Udta Punjab", wherein the makers got embroiled into a tussle with the censor board over the film body's demand for multiple cuts in the movie.

"CBFC shud become a body that does not censor or even certify ONLY CLASSIFY films. That gives the audience the choice to watch a film or not," the 65-year-old "Neerja" actress tweeted.

PM Narendra Modi to visit 5 African nations in July, 2016.

A CRPF jawan today allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself from a personal weapon at the forces' headquarter here. Head Constable Hemant Kumar (25) was found lying in a pool of blood in a bathroom in the ground floor of the Central Reserve Police Force headquarters here at about 10 am, officials said.

They said the jawan was working in the public relations cell of the force and was on morning duty when the incident happened. He shot himself from a pistol that he brought with himself, they said. Soon after the gun shot was heard in the well secured CRPF headquarters at Lodhi Road in Delhi, troops in the vicinity and those in the armed quick reaction team reached the spot. "He was found lying in a pool of blood.

A Court of Inquiry has been ordered and senior officials of the force have rushed to the spot," they said. This is probably the first time that any such suicide incident has taken place right inside the CRPF headquarters, they added. Kumar had joined the force in 2012, the official said.

The Telangana government on Tuesday declared a "global emergency' after an active strain of poliovirus (P2 strain) was found in a water sample collected from a drain in Hyderabad.

The virus found was a vaccine-derived strain of the virus. In a mass vaccination drive, more than three lakh children in the city and Ranga Reddy district will be inoculated Wednesday onwards as a "preventive measure'.

Two lakh vaccines were airlifted from Geneva immediately after the virus was detected, The Times of India reported."The government has decided to conduct a special campaign against polio in Hyderabad and parts of Ranga Reddy from June 20 to June 26,' the principal secretary of health, Rajeshwar Tiwari, said, adding that the polio strain was previously detected in Bihar, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, as well.

Union Cabinet clears the new aviation policy. The Civil Aviation Ministry had sent the proposed policy to the Cabinet for approval on June 3. The policy has laid stress on smaller routes. Details awaited.


The NDA government had for the first time unveiled the policy draft in November 2014, subsequently replacing it with another draft in October 2015.

Initially, the policy was expected to be finalised in the last financial year as certain proposals were to be implemented from April 1, 2016.

Since then, the government has been moving back and forth on the matter, primarily to strike a balance between various stakeholders on their glaring differences over issues like the 5/20 rule that allows a carrier to fly abroad only if it has 20 aircraft and has flown domestic for five years.

The policy aims to bolster the domestic aviation sector by tapping its high growth potential with provisions such as capping airfares at Rs 2,500 for a one-hour flight, auctioning of unilateral traffic rights, tax incentives for airlines, maintenance and repair works of aircraft besides mooting 2 per cent levy on all air tickets to fund regional connectivity scheme and providing viability gap funding for airlines to encourage operate on regional routes.

Pakistan is looking to hire lobbying firms in Washington after a gap of nearly eight years, seeking to refurbish its image in the United States at a time of deteriorating relations between the allies, two government officials told Reuters on Tuesday.

Ties have been particularly strained following a US unmanned aircraft strike that killed top Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in western Pakistan last month, which Islamabad protested was a violation of its sovereignty.

Relations have also been tense since a plan to buy eight F-16 fighter jets from the United States fell through this May after the U.S. Congress refused to approve the deal.The deal, valued at $699 million, came unstuck after Congress refused to authorise the use of US government funds to pay for the aircraft under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program.

"Pakistan used to have lobbyists in Washington ... Now we want to relaunch the effort," said a senior government official, who asked not to be identified, as he was not authorised to speak to the media on the record.

Islamabad dropped its official lobbying efforts during the 1999-2008 military rule of General Pervez Musharraf, the official said, adding that the government had now decided it needed help selling its image.

A Jet Airways flight from Bengaluru to  Mangalore returns to Bengaluru airport soon after departure after smoke emerges in the cabin. All 65 passengers and 4 crew members safe, Jet Airways said in a statement.

@smitaprakash   tweets: Omar Abdullah to a reporter: Are you from Times Now? Reporter: News X. Omar A: Same thing.

The MeT department has warned of heavy rain in Uttarakhand today. The department said heavy rainfall is likely at isolated places across the state, especially in Uttarkashi, Tehri, Dehradun, Almora, Nainital, Champavat and Pithoragarh districts, in the next 48 hours. The government has issued an advisory to all the District Magistrates, asking them to be vigilant and to take all precautionary measures for the people's safety.

Just ahead of the it's Friday release Udta Punjab has run into trouble again. An NGO has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court verdict.

The NGO, Human Rights awareness, has pleaded that the High Court cannot decide on deletions to be made in a film. The NGO also alleges that the film, based on drug abuse in Punjab, shows the state in poor light.

The NGO's lawyer today requested the top court to hear his plea urgently as the film releases this Friday.

The Supreme Court has asked the petitioner to complete paper work, before it decides whether to take up the case.

Admonishing the censor board for acting like a 'grandmother', the Bombay High Court had ordered it to certify movie Udta Punjab within 48 hours with just one cut instead of 13 suggested by the CBFC so its producers can release it on schedule on June 17.

However, now, a Punjab-based NGO has moved Supreme Court challenging the HC order. According to ANI, the non-government organisation has sought a stay on the film.

The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab has also said that it has no objection to the release of the film, adding that the people will decide the fate of the Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhat starrer.

In a strongly worded order, the Bombay HC bench comprising Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi said,"Do not act like a grandmother. Change as per the times now. The CBFC need not be over-sensitive in the matter of art."

It's time to update the amphibian version of the Kama Sutra, because a new form of "froggy style' has been pioneered by the Bombay night frog, a species endemic to the Western Ghats mountain range in India.

In a research published Tuesday in PeerJ, a team led by amphibian expert and wildlife conservationist SD Biju of the University of Delhi describe this previously unobserved lovemaking technique, which has been dubbed the "dorsal straddle.'

It is the seventh known mode of "amplexus,' an amphibian mating behavior that usually involves the male clutching the female's body and fertilizing her eggs as she lays them. For inquiring minds, here's a handy illustrated guide.

For more positions click this link.

While the monsoon, though delayed by a week has hit India, the impact of the drought, among the worst in independent India continues to leave its impact on about one-fourth of India's population and a significant portion of rural India. On May 11, the Supreme Court, in an unprecedented order, laid down certain directions for the Centre and state governments of drought-affected regions to follow. Read more

French and Canadian leaders have made phone calls to US President Barack Obama to express their condolences over the deadly shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando in which 49 people were killed.

According to the White House, Obama spoke by phone with the French President Francois Hollande to accept his Hollande's condolences for the terrorist attack in Orlando.

"Obama thanked Hollande for visiting the US Embassy in Paris on Monday to express France's sympathy and support," the White House said yesterday.

Obama offered his own condolences on behalf of the American people for yesterday's fatal attack on a French police officer and his partner in France.

"Both leaders reaffirmed their shared commitment to degrading and destroying ISIL and standing against the broader scourge of terrorism," the White House said.

"The President spoke by phone today with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada to accept Prime Minister Trudeau's condolences for the terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida," the White House said.

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9 of the 11 employees unions of Himachal Road Transport Corporation have called off their strike

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Opinion polls indicate that Britain may vote to leave the European Union in a referendum to be held on 23rd June

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