Prime Minister Narendra Modi today spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee about the situation arising out of the collapse of an under-construction flyover in Kolkata which has claimed 18 lives so far and left over 60 injured.

The special court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act cases today extended till April 13 the judicial custody of NCP leader and former Maharashtra minister Chhagan Bhujbal and his nephew and former MP Samir.

West Indies thrashed India by seven wickets, with two balls to spare, to qualify for the final of the World T20. 

The night that shook Paris started with three rental cars: three cars with three teams of terrorists maneuvering through the Friday evening traffic, armed with the weapons of war.

Three more National Disaster Relief Force teams have been sent forth to the Kolkata bridge collapse site keeping in view the prolonged rescue operations. 

Just in: An FIR has been filed against IVRCL, the Hyderabad-based company which was constructing the flyover. 

With three columns of around 300 soldiers and engineers and three medical teams, the Indian Army is battling it out in Kolkata rescuing people believed to be in the hundreds trapped under a collapsed flyover. The death toll so far is 18 with nearly 80 injured.


The Army along with the 10 teams from the NDRF brought with them crucial equipment, including drilling machines, gas cutters, seven water tankers and state-of-the art sensors. They are using heavy duty cranes supplied by the Delhi metro.


When the Army moved in, locals and firefighters, who till then had been struggling to remove huge chunks of concrete with their bare hands to pull out the injured, broke into a spontaneous applause, reports NDTV.


The men had been at work since the Vivekananda Setu, located in the middle of a busy commercial area in Central Kolkata, collapsed around 12.30 pm, trapping pedestrians and a number of light and heavy vehicles.

The operation, an army spokesman said, could last all night.


Pic: A rescue team carries a dead body from the rubble of the collapsed flyover

In Washington, PM Modi interacts with well wishers.

Did he didn't he? The Netaji mystery deepens.Files declassified by the Modi government on Tuesday indicate that Netaji Subhas Bose made three 'broadcasts' on dates after he's thought to have died in a plane crash in Taiwan on August 18, 1945.One file in particular, File No 870/11/p/16/92/Pol, contains the content of these broadcasts, supposedly from Netaji. Read more

So, we know actor Rahul Bose is watching the India-West Indies semis at Wankhede. Bose tweets a while ago, "At the Wankhede! Ready for the national anthem. #wt20 #IndvsWI."

Social activist Anna Hazare was today hospitalised in Ahmednagar district after he complained of fatigue, sources close to him said.


"Anna had some trouble this morning when he went to the bathroom at his Ralegan Siddhi village due to dehydration and increasing temperature," they said.

The 78-year-old anti-graft crusader was later admitted to a private hospital in Ahmednagar. "Anna has said that he is 'a bit tired' and nothing else is wrong with him," the sources said.

On Saturday, 22 March 2016, the British newspaper The Guardian published an article by the environment editor of paper, John Vidal on the sexual harassment charges against the former director general of The Energy and Resources Insititute (TERI), RK Pachauri.


In the article, Pachauri effectively claimed that the allegations against him were a conspiracy by climate-change-sceptics.In February 2015, a former employee of TERI had filed a complaint stating that she was sexually harassed by Pachauri. Following the complaint, Pachauri vacated his position. Last month, Pachauri was appointed Executive Vice-Chairman, a post specially created for him. The same month, a second former employee stepped forward and accused Pachauri of sexual harassment. Now, a third woman has spoken out. Below is an open letter received from her lawyers. Read more

Must read: 9 things the Guardian neglected in its piece on Rajendra Pachauri.

"Did the flyover's construction flout Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission's norms," asks CPI-M MP Mohammed Salim? "Vivekananda flyover is located at Posta, one of the most congested areas of Kolkata. Any construction in such an area should be done at night," Salim said on Thursday afternoon.

"It's time we asked the engineers and supervisors if they were pressured to work overtime flouting the norms of urban construction," the CPI-M veteran added.

-- Indrani Roy/Rediff.com.

A construction worker being treated at a city hospital told local media that the construction of the flyover was 'faulty'. "A part of the board was cracking when the construction was going on," the worker told a leading regional TV channel. "Despite that, no action was taken. Another worker came and repaired the crack. After this, our supervisors told us 'all was well' and that we should continue."

Indrani Roy/Rediff.com.

5 Army columns, 10 NDRF columns have been pressed into action. MoS Kiren Rijiju promised more NDRF men. 

Kolkata Police said that 18 persons have so far died in the incident in the flyover collapse in the Burrabazar area, which houses the city's largest wholesale market, while several others were injured.

The injured were rushed to hospitals in the vicinity. State administration officials said 62 people have been injured and taken to hospital, while several others were feared trapped under the debris.


A number of vehicles were also crushed under the concrete and steel debris. CCTV footage showed people, cars, autorickshaws and hawkers coming under the collapsed structure. Some trying to flee the spot were also trapped. A bloody hand from under a girder gestured for help as people handed over water bottles to survivors pinned underneath.

According to a highly placed official in Nabanna (West Bengal secretariat), Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had asked for the construction on the flyover to be speeded up as she was planning a pre-election inauguration.

As a result, labourers were working round the clock to finish the project.
Work on the part of the flyover that collapsed was finished last night, the official told Indrani Roy/Rediff.com.

The West Bengal government has put the toll as 15 dead and over 50 injured.

Updates: The Left reacts to Mamata Banerjee's claim that the the tender for the bridge was passed during the Left regime and therefore the party is responsible for the disaster.

The Left responds saying that the TMC govt took money from the construction company and said the TMC was playing politics over tragedy.

India Today reports that locals had protested that the design of the flyover was faulty and had stopped construction in 2009. However, when the TMC came to power in 2011, the construction was once again resumed.

An Emergency centre has been set up at the state secretariat Nabanna. Helpline number: 1070.


MoS Home Kiren Rijiju says more NDRF teams will be sent.

Toll: 14 dead, 78 injured: Kolkata police 

President Bashar al-Assad has said he is ready to hold early presidential elections if the Syrian people wanted it.


President Assad previously said "opposition forces" could form part of a new government, which would be agreed at peace talks in Geneva.


He told RIA he expected it to consist of "independent forces, opposition forces and forces loyal to the state".


Over 250,000 people have died since the start of the Syrian civil war in March 2011, which has caused a refugee crisis and empowered Isis militants. Read more

In other news, the race to save Tata Steel's British operations could leave the UK Government temporarily owning the troubled firm's factories, ministers suggested yesterday as potential bidders start to weigh up their chances of rescuing the ailing industry.

Tata has fired the starting gun on a sale of its entire UK business, which employs 15,000 people, after the group's board in India dismissed its own rescue plan as "unaffordable' and "very risky'.


The firm has written off more than 5bn since it took over Corus in 2006, and its finance director Koushik Chatterjee said the British assets were now valued at "almost zero'. Read more

Narendra Modi ‏@narendramodi  tweets his condolences. The PM is in Washington for the Nuclear Summit.

"My thoughts are with the families of those who lost their lives in Kolkata. May the injured recover at the earliest. Shocked & saddened by collapse of under construction flyover in Kolkata. Took stock of the situation & rescue operations."

In other news, Donald Trump scrambled to clarify his position on abortion Wednesday after he said women who undergo the procedure should face "some form of punishment" should the practice be outlawed.


Several hours later -- after widespread condemnation from Trump's presidential rivals and even leading anti-abortion groups -- he walked back his remarks, releasing a statement in which he said that women who obtain abortions are victims and that doctors who perform the service are the ones who should be punished. Read more

Army sends another ambulance with medics and four recovery vehicles (cranes) and seven water blowers to the affected area, Employees of Infra company IVRCL, which had the contract for the collapsed Kolkata bridge, left their office in Hyderabad when the incident happened.

Kiran Bedi @thekiranbedi  tweets: "I vividly recall in one of my Kolkatta Visits I had tweeted abt this dangerous bridge on which work was standstill."

The control room number is: 033-22145664

Pic: Sections of the collapsed bridge.

Number of dead at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital is now 15, says 24 Ghanta. However, Kolkata Police confirms 14 dead and 78 injured in the under-construction bridge near Ganesh Talkies in north Kolkata. State Govt announces compensation of Rs 5 lakh for the next of kin of the deceased and Rs 2 lakh for the injured.

Public baying for the contractor responsible for this horrifying incident.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee asks people to cooperate to clear the way for rescue ops. She said that the tender for the construction of the flyover was given to a Hyderabad-based company during the Left regime and promised that those responsible for the incident will be punished.

The entire area immediately near the collapsed bridge is being cordoned off after the NDRF has said the rest of the bridge can collapse too. This is the third flyover collapse in Kolkata, one at Ultadanga and another at Chingrihata (on the way to Salt Lake).

At least 300 Army personnel at the site now.

The Army has already deployed four columns of rescue personnel. There are three medical teams with two ambulances, surgeons and nursing assistants in each team. One engineering team from the Army has also reached with specialised earth moving equipment, but access to the site is difficult. 

WB CM Mamata Banerjee at the spot where under-construction bridge collapsed near Ganesh Talkies in Kolkata. Residents of the area tell Bengali channel 24 Ghanta that the earth shook so violently when the flyover collapsed that those inside their homes in the area feared it was an earthquake and ran out of their homes. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has issued notices to many occupants to vacate decrepit buildings from the British era.

A reporter tells the channel that one of the victims trapped under a concrete beam begged for water but died before he could be lifted from under it.

Something India should emulate -- South Africa's President Zuma ordered by constitutional court to repay costs of upgrading house with public money. Details awaited. 

In other news, UK PM David Cameron says the government is "doing everything it can" to save thousands of steel jobs - but warned there were "no guarantees of success".


Speaking after chairing crisis talks on Tata Steel's decision to sell its UK business, the PM said nationalisation was not the answer but the government was "not ruling anything out".


Ministers are under pressure to secure the future of the threatened plants.


Labour has urged ministers to "get a grip" and act now to help the industry.


It is understood the government wants reassurance Tata Steel will not close its plants before a buyer is found.Tata Steel's UK business - which directly employs 15,000 workers and supports thousands of others - includes plants in Port Talbot, Rotherham, Corby and Shotton.


The Port Talbot plant - which employs 5,500 people - is said to be losing 1m a day.

Politics begins over the collapsed flyover in TMC-ruled West Bengal, with the BJP saying it is indicative of corruption. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, who is campaigning in Midnapore is on her way back to the city. 

Media reports now say that the bridge is five years old, while ABP Ananda reported that construction on the bridge began in 2006.

Army and NDRF at the site of the collapsed flyover in Kolkata.

TMC MP Derek O'Brien on the Kolkata flyover collapse, tweets, it's a "monumental tragedy. Rescue ops on. Many feared dead. Chief Sec/Home Sec at site. CM headed back to Kol immediately. This is the update I have."


Pic: A taxi trapped under the collapsed flyover.

The BBC story on the Pan Am hijack during which stewardess Neerja Bhanot was killed. "Inside a hijack: The unheard stories of the Pan Am 73 crew." Read

(In the first picture, Neerja is seen in the top right of the frame.)

Firefighters and residents have been trying to rescue the injured trapped under the wreckage and pull out dead bodies with their bare hands.
Most of the dead so far, seem to be construction workers. Eyewitnesses say a minibus is believed to be trapped under the debris but no confirmations yet on whether it was empty or had passengers. ABP Ananda reports that the bridge was being built since 2006.

Meanwhile, there's been an ink attack on former Maharashtra Advocate General Shreehari Aney in New Delhi. Congress leader Nitesh Rane claims responsibility.Aney resigned as Maharashtra's Advocate General last week after his public call for a separate state of Marathwada. 

ABP Ananda reports that the Vivekananda Road flyover collapsed at around 12:30 pm. Images shown by the channel show dead bodies trapped under the steel girders. The flyover located around the Bada Bazar area is extremely congested making rescue work difficult. The injured have been rushed to the Calcutta medical college and hospital. Bodies are being rescued using gas cutters, but heavy duty earth moving equipment is yet to arrive.  

israr @israrrukh an eyewitness tweets: Flyover collapses near girish park. i was right there for my class, have never seen something more horrifying #Kolkata

Eyewitness claims nearly 150 people stuck under the collapsed bridge near Ganesh Talkies (Girish Park) in Kolkata. Several autorickshaws were parked under the flyover and were crushed. Rescue workers at the scene lugging tonnes of concrete away to rescue those trapped beneath. The construction of this flyover started at least five years ago during the Left regime. 

Just in: At least 10 people are feared dead and several injured as an under-construction  flyover in north Kolkata collapsed on Thursday. Efforts are on to rescue those who may be trapped under the debris. The Vivekananda bridge, which was being built is located at Girish Park, and is extremely congested. Residents of the area say they heard a loud noise and rushed out of their homes fearing an earthquake. Details awaited.

A wedding last evening brought the estranged Gandhi and Vadra families together socially after more than a decade, 19 years after they were originally united by the marriage of Priyanka Gandhi and businessman Robert Vadra.When Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi stepped into Le Meridien hotel to witness Congress supporter, columnist and model Tehseen Poonawalla wed Robert's cousin Monika Vadera, they were attending a Vadra family celebration after nearly 15 years.Sonia stayed two hours, longer than her son who's busy electioneering for the upcoming state elections, and spoke with members of the Vadra family (or the Vaderas, as some branches of the clan call themselves).

Priyanka had not had much contact with her in-laws, either, since Robert published a legal notice in January 2002 disowning his father Rajindra, an exporter of metal handicrafts, and brother Richard.Last night, though, she mingled happily with the dozens of pink-turbaned Vaderas, many of whom took selfies with her. She attended to the guests and even escorted Sonia out as a Vadra bahu. Read more

Narendra Modi's whistle-stop in Belgium, which would otherwise have been a mere blip on India's diplomatic radar, has turned into a celebration of what is, in fact, a unique link in the evolution of India's place in Europe in the early years of independence. Read more

A new name has been added in the list of undesirable elements maintained by the Central Bureau of Investigation. This list is maintained by Secretaries to the Government of India to forewarn them not to encourage or interact with people named in the list.

The new entrant to the list shall remain unnamed, but here are some details about his background.


The person was a junior lawyer to a powerful UPA minister who functioned from North Block. The junior lawyer was also a legal advisor to a private telecom company. By virtue of his proxmity to the owners of the telecom company the lawyer is said to have quietly recorded conversations of rivals in the corporate world. This has been happening for over four years.

The telecom company sacked him after the NDA assumed office in 2014. But now the junior lawyer is said to continue his penchant of recording conversations with NDA ministers as well.

Political circles believe that he may use the transcripts to extract money from politicians and corporate houses.

Delhi political circles are agog with rumours that the second half of the Union Budget session will be rife with exposes of the transcripts and will summararily disrupt parliament. Stay with us.

When India play West Indies in Mumbai today for a place in the World Twenty 20 finals, 250 bureaucrats from Maharashtra will be in the stands of the famous Wankhede stadium. For 'free'.


Officials tell NDTV that the tickets are not quite free.


They get them courtesy a four-decade-old agreement between the state government and the Mumbai Cricket Association or MCA.


The government says that in 1974, land for the stadium was allotted to the cricket body and instead of cash, it promised to pay back in free tickets for every international match played at the Wankhede. No one could say for how long the arrangement, already 42 years old, lasts.


"The place where Wankhede is today belongs to the state government. The government had then given the land to the Mumbai Cricket Association. There is an agreement between them where a certain quota of tickets need to be given to the Maharashtra government. That is why 250 tickets have been given...There is a Government Resolution for the distribution also mentioned in the agreement," said Ashish Shelar, a BJP lawmaker, who is also the vice president of the MCA.  


While Maharashtra's top bureaucrat, chief secretary Swadheen Kshatriya has arranged for the free tickets for officials, Shelar said he has "also arranged for 200 tickets for assembly members." That is in his "personal capacity".

While details of the PM' schedule in Washington have not been released yet, the Prime Minister is expected to hold a series of meetings throughout the day, which range from bilaterals with heads of state to community leaders, to scientists and top executives from the corporate world.


Modi is scheduled to hold a meeting with John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand later today and meet with scientists from Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO).


Even as he has no public engagement with the Indian American community, which has been a trademark of his overseas trips, a large number of Indian Americans from in and around Washington said they would be standing outside his hotel, despite tight security, to get a glimpse of Modi.


The official summit engagement of the Prime Minister would begin in the evening when he would drive down to the White House to attend a dinner hosted by Obama in honour of the world leaders attending the fourth Nuclear Security Summit.

No Modi-Obama bilateral meeting has been announced yet from either side, but the two leaders are expected to get multiple opportunities for interaction and talks over the next two days.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar has sought help from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resolve the huge bad debt issue plaguing public sector banks. Banking bad debts (or loans recognised as unrecoverable through regular measures) stood at Rs 52,542 crore by March 2015.

In a three-page letter written recently, Pawar is said to support industrialists to restructure their loans. But according to business circles, RBI has put strict conditions.

News in New Delhi's political circles is that Pawar's letter on RBI is the talking point as there is also speculation that he is seeking to mediate between Kingfisher CEO Vijay Mallya and the government.

In his letter, Pawar has stated that the union government has to restore the confidence level of business houses with the present monetary policy of the RBI.

PM Modi arrives in Washington DC where he will attend the 4th Nuclear Security Summit.  will also meet scientists from LIGO.  India and US will sign a MoU for building a state-of-the-art Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) project in the country. The MoU will be signed between the National Science Foundation of the US and India's Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Science and Technology.

PM Narendra Modi will meet scientists from the LIGO project. He will also attend dinner hosted by US president Barack Obama. 

The CRPF believes that information regarding the movement of its troops, killed in a deadly landmine blast in Dantewada, was "leaked" and it has begun a probe to find out the mole who could be from "within or outside" the paramilitary.


"It is certain that the information about their movement was leaked. Somewhere or at some stage this has happened. The boys were doing a surprise non-operational movement and hence were in mufti. We are looking into it," CRPF Director General K Durga Prasad said.

Seven CRPF men were killed yesterday in a deadly landmine blast carried out by Naxals that also left a massive four-feet deep crater on the road in the worst Maoist violence-affected Dantewada district.

Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh, his cook Madan Gopal and jeweller Rajesh Verrma reach NIA office.

The Pakistan Joint Investigation Team will be given access to the Punjab Police officer who was allegedly abducted by the terrorists along with his jeweller friend and cook on January 1. The terrorists had used the hijacked vehicle to reach the air base.

NIA chief Sharad Kumar said yesterday that the JIT may be given access to witnesses in connection with the attack, in which seven security personnel were killed in the 80-hour operation to flush out the six terrorists.

The evidence India has shared includes phone call intercepts and statements of witnesses. The Pakistani team, which includes a member of its Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, has also been allowed access to the air base -- retracing the steps of the terrorists and visiting the area where the 80-hour gun-battle with them had taken place.

Pakistan has not contradicted the evidence India presented earlier this week regarding the way the terrorists had infiltrated into India and the group they belong to.

India's intelligence agencies suspect that a group named Jaishul Adil is responsible for the kidnapping of Indian businessman Kulbhushan Yadav from the Iran-Pakistan border. Jaishul Adil is an extremist Sunni radical group, which is headed by Salahuddin Farooqui.


This Salafist-jihadist group owes its allegiance to the Al Qaeda and is reported to have around 500 fighters. Jaishul Adil has in the past killed Shia pilgrims from Iran and has been accused of targeting Iranian border guards along the country's border with Pakistan's Balochistan province. Jaishul Adil has been designated as a terrorist organisation by Iran.
Read more

The Indian Army desperately needs 3,53,765 new bullet-proof vests. It will now get 50,000 such vests for which it had to sign an "emergency" procurement contract worth Rs 140 crore.

If it wasn't so tragic it would almost be ironic.

The visiting Pakistani Joint Investigation Team will from Thursday begin recording the statements of the witnesses in the Pathankot terror attack case. 

A memorial -- comprising of photographs, messages and a cement "stupa"-- at Hyderabad University may soon be pulled down, which could ratchet up tension at the university where aggressive protests have led to student arrests and a mass leave by teachers in the past week.

Senior officials of the governments of India and the United States met to exchange views on the terrorist threat being posed by the Islamic State across the globe and particularly in West Asia, and reiterated the importance of combating the IS ideology that was fuelling and encouraging other such groups.

Security has been stepped up in and around Delhi Secretariat and the chief minister's residence after police received a call in which a man threatened to 'blow up' Arvind Kejriwal. The police conducted a thorough check at both the locations and later declared it a hoax call.

The night that shook Paris started with three rental cars: three cars with three teams of terrorists maneuvering through the Friday evening traffic, armed with the weapons of war.

In the backdrop of terror attacks in Brussels last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday night highlighted the dangers posed by terrorism to the world and said the the United Nations should address such major challenges failing which the global body could be rendered irrelevant.

Donald Trump says women who have abortions should be subject to "some kind of punishment" if the procedures were outlawed.

An FIR was registered today against former Mumbai unit president of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, Ganesh Pandey for allegedly molesting a woman member of the BJP's youth wing at an event earlier this month. 

Senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka today said it is "humiliating" for him to hold a "lower rank" post and he has been awaiting posting on promotion for the last three months. 

The US is stepping up its troop presence in eastern Europe in response to an "aggressive Russia", the military has said.From next year, three fully manned US combat brigades will be deployed.The BBC's diplomatic correspondent says it is the most significant US reinforcement of Nato since tensions flared over Russian action in Ukraine.Last month the Pentagon announced plans to quadruple its budget for European defence in 2017.

Another twist in U'khand crisis; no floor test on Thursday
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5 arrested for assaulting boy who refused to chant 'Bharat Mata ki jai'
PM Modi, Belgian PM Michel jointly launch Asia's biggest telescope