Nearly all of Bollywood attended the funeral of Vinod Khanna at Worli crematorium in Mumbai.

The Maharashtra police today lodged a criminal case against Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and her husband Raj Kundra in a Thane police station for allegedly duping a textile firm owner of Rs 24 lakhs. 

The Election Commission has sought an unprecedented 74,000 paramilitary personnel from the Centre for deployment during the bypoll to the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency on May 25. 

Vinod Khanna's mortal remains being taken to the Worli crematorium. Picture courtesy: ABP News. Regal even in death.

Actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna, a four-time MP from Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat in Punjab, was popularly known as "Sardar of bridges" for connecting remote villages in his constituency.

70-year-old Khanna died of bladder cancer at a hospital in Mumbai today.

As the news of his death spread, his constituency went into a state of mourning. "The news has come as a great shock to us. We cannot believe that he is no more. He was ever so helpful and did so much for his constituency," 78-year-old Jarnail Singh, a Pathankot-based resident in Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency, said. Suave and easy to mingle with voters, Khanna was always a crowd puller in his constituency.


He even bought a house in the region so that he could have easy access to the people of his constituency. He had demanded a special package for border districts to create employment opportunities and promote adventure and spiritual tourism in his border constituency during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.


After joining the BJP in 1997, Khanna was fielded from Gurdaspur parliamentary seat in 1998. He met the expectations of the saffron party when he unseated veteran Congress leader and five-time MP Sukhbuns Kaur Bhinder with a handsome margin.


Khanna, who appeared in over 140 films, including "Haath ki Safai", "Hera Pheri" and "Muqaddar Ka Sikander", again trounced Bhinder in 1999 and 2004 Lok Sabha polls.


However, he had to taste defeat in 2009 Lok Sabha elections when he was defeated by Congress candidate Partap Singh Bajwa. Khanna took his 'sweet revenge' in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when he thrashed Bajwa with a margin of over 1.30 lakh votes.

MEA statement on Kulbhushan Jadhav, who is on death row in Pakistan.

MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay's (pictured) statement: Efforts are on to save Kulbhushan Jadhav; 16 consular requests have been made so far. We have informed Pakistan his mother wants a visa to visit him."

The retired Indian Navy officer has been sentenced to death by a military court in Pakistan. The plea by his mother has been sent to the appellate court, initiating a process to get his conviction overturned.

The appeal on behalf of Jadhav was given to Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua by Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale, who also handed over a petition by Jadhav's mother seeking the Pakistan government's intervention for his release and expressing the desire to meet him.

Bambawale, who met Janjua, also made a fresh request for consular access to Jadhav, the external affairs ministry said in press release in New Delhi. This is the 16th request for access.

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal held a meeting with his MLAs in the wake of the drubbing in the MCD polls yesterday and asked them to take an oath of allegience to the party.

"Swear upon God, you will not leave this pure party. Swear upon God you will not abandon this movement. If you betray us, you betray God," Kejriwal told his MLAs.

A barrage of MLAs have offered to resign after the party's sorry performance in the polls.\

He told his MLAs, "You have no liability. AAP doesn't sell tickets unlike other parties. If you want to stay honest, you can. Do it," he urged. Referring to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi as "a den of corruption", he said, "don't give in to lalach (greed)."

Yesterday, AAP MLA Alka Lamba offered to resign owning "responsibility" for the party's poor show in the three wards she was responsible for in the Delhi Municipal Election polls.

Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh has also offered to resign as in-charge of the Punjab unit of the party. Singh said he has sent his resignation to partys national convenor Arvind Kejriwal. Durgesh, deputy in-charge of the Punjab unit, has also put in his resignation, Singh said.

Dilip Pandey, the AAPs Delhi unit convener, also stepped down taking moral responsibility for the defeat.

The offer to step down comes a day after the party suffered a setback in the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections winning in just 45 wards out of the total 272 and finishing a far second behind the BJP. 

Sadhvi Pragya Thakur addresses her first press conference in Bhopal after she was granted bail in the Malegaon blast case on April 25.
She begins by paying tribute to the 25 CRPF jawans killed in Sukma.

The Bombay high court on Tuesday granted bail to the sadhvi, a key accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case and in jail for over eight years, holding that prima facie no case was made out against her.

Chennai-based Prakash Swamy, who had filed affidavit on a firm's behalf intending to buy Sahara's New York hotel, fails to deposit Rs 10 cr as per last order. The  SC orders Swamy's arrest. He will be in jail for one month for contempt of court.

Sensex retreats from record close, ends 103.61 points lower at 30,029.74; Nifty falls 9.70 points to 9,342.15.

Around 1,000 women will be hired in Jammu and Kashmir for a police battalion, which will primarily deal with incidents like stone pelting in the Valley. The policewomen will be part of the five India Reserved Battalions (IRBs), the central government has already sanctioned.


As many as 1,40,000 youths in Jammu and Kashmir have applied for 5,000 posts in the five IRBs to be raised in the state. The process of recruitment in the five IRBs has started and authorities have received around 1,40,000 applications, 40 per cent of which are from the Kashmir valley.


The women battalion will primarily deal with incidents like stone pelting in the Kashmir valley and other law and order duties, a Home Ministry official said.


The response to the police battalions is very encouraging as there are nearly 30 applicants against one post, the official said.


The issue was discussed today at a high-level meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Rs 80,000 crore development package announced for Jammu and Kashmir by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015.


The IRBs are being raised with an aim to provide jobs to the local youths and 60 per cent of vacancies in the new battalions will be filled from the border districts of the state.


The cost of raising each battalion is around Rs 61 crore and 75 per cent of it will be provided by the central government. Personnel of India Reserve Battalions (IRBs) are normally deployed in their respective states but they can be deployed in other states too if there is a requirement.


At present, there are 144 India Reserve Battalions in various states. In addition, four IRBs each are being raised in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, 12 in Maoist-hit states besides the five battalions in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Uttarakhand High Court on Thursday issued notices to the Central Election Commission (EC), the State Election Commission and Bharatiya Janata Party Vikasnagar MLA M.S. Chauhan.

The action was taken upon a plea filed by Congress Vikasnagar runner-up candidate Navprabhat on alleged tampering of electronic voting machines (EVMs).

The High Court has asked the authorities to preserve the EVMs and has also sought a response on the same within six weeks.

Chauhan had defeated the Congress candidate, Navprabhat, over 6,000 votes in the elections held in February this year.

Former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat had hinted at possible tampering of EVMs to tweak the poll outcome.

The EVMs are under scanner after the opposition parties have alleged that the BJP had tampered the machines to ensure favorable results.

The Supreme Court has asked the Bombay High Court's official liquidator to prepare the terms for auctioning Aamby Valley for its approval on June 19.

Sahara chief Subrata Roy undertakes in the court to pay Rs 1,500 crore in the SEBI-Sahara account on or before June 15. Roy furnishes a post-dated cheque of Rs 552 crore to be realised by July 15.


The court warned Roy that he may be sent to jail again if the amount is not paid.

The Supreme Court had last week asked authorities to auction Aamby Valley after the group had failed to deposit Rs 5,000 crore of the balance Rs 14,000 crore to be paid to investors.

The SC asks Roy to be present in court on June 19, the next date of hearing.

The court also extends Subrata Roy's parole  till June 19.

The court told Roy to pay Rs 2550 crore by June 15 or go to jail. "Your offer looks like a mirage, sometimes like a sprinkle," the court said.

File pic.

A Tamil Nadu minister today described his party as one "without father and mother," and said people's aspirations for unity in the now divided AIADMK was being reflected among the leaders in both camps. Cooperation Minister Sellur K Raju said 'works' for holding the keenly anticipated merger talks between the two factions, led by Chief Minister K Palaniswami and his predecessor O Panneerselvam, respectively, were on.


"AIADMK is a movement without father and mother. Our Amma (mother-Jayalalithaa) is no more," he said.


 "People and supporters want the party, which Amma built through her hard work, to be united. This aspiration is reflected among the leaders of both factions," he told reporters.


The senior leader exuded confidence that the AIADMK government will not only complete its term of five years but also retain power in the 2021 Assembly polls. Asked whether the faction will follow suit on removing posters of AIADMK chief VK Sasikala from the party's district offices also, Raju said a panel has been formed to go into the matter.


Banners featuring Sasikala had been pulled down from the AIADMK headquarters here yesterday, a demand made by the rival Panneerselvam faction on Tuesday.


However, the AIADMK (Amma) faction said the banners were pulled in lines with a decision taken earlier and that it had nothing to do with Panneerselvam camp leader E Madusudanan's demand in this regard.


Meanwhile, Finance Minister D Jayakumar said the Amma faction was ready for the merger talks with the Panneerselvam camp. "As mentioned earlier, the doors are open .. if they come for talks we are ready (to hold discussions)", he said.

Vinod Khanna's funeral will take place at Banganga crematorium, Mumbai, at 4:30 pm today.

Rishi Kapoor @chintskap who has worked with Vinod Khanna in the blockbuster film Amar, Akbar, Antony, changes his Twitter profile picture to a smiling picture of the actor, who passed away today. His second tweet today, on the Khanna's demise, reads, "Remembering the good times with you, Vinod. Thank you for being my friend."

His first tweet, condoling Vinod Khanna's death, read, "Will miss you Amar. RIP."

He also changed his Twitter bio to read, "Good Bye Vinod Khanna, RIP."

The two actors have also worked together in Chandni, Eena Meena Deeka and Tell me O Kkhuda.

Vinod Khanna was hospitalised and later discharged from HN Reliance Foundation and Research Centre in Girgaum, Mumbai due to severe dehydration. He was also reportedly battling cancer for years.

Born on October 6, 1946 in a Punjabi family to Kamla and Kishanchand Khanna in Peshawar, Vinod studied commerce at Mumbai's Sydenham College before moving into acting.

Khanna was married to Geetanjali between 1971 and 1985 and has two sons with her, Rahul Khanna and Akshaye Khanna. He married Kavita with whom he has two children, Sakshi and Shraddha.

Vinod Khanna appeared in 141 films between 1968 and 2013 and also forayed into politics by joining the BJP. He was Minister of State for Tourism and Culture in 2002.

Just in: Uttarakhand High Court directs all EVMs used in the polls to be taken into judicial custody. The order comes after a petition filed by Congress MLAs alleging EVM fraud.   Details awaited.

Karan Johar @karanjohar As a mark of respect to our beloved Vinod Khanna the entire team of Baahubali has decided to cancel the premiere tonight...

Vinod Khanna followed Osho Rajneesh to Oregon, US, in the early eighties. Reports say he worked the gardens at the Rajneeshpuram ashram and sang to the flowers every morning. He rarely visited India during this period.


Osho Rajneesh with Vinod Khanna (Photo courtesy: Twitter).

Admitting that lack of unity was a contributing factor to the Congress not winning the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls which was swept by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal called out the party for sidelining veteran leaders responsible for the party's previous successes.


"The party should have gone into this election taking those along who are responsible for changing the face of Delhi. When a crisis erupts, everyone from veterans to new leaders should be brought in," Sibal told ANI.


"This is where we lost, but we should learn from our mistakes. Battles need unity and can't be fought alone.


"However, the senior leader asserted that the Congress had witnessed a significant increase in their voter percentage, proving that they were still a popular option among Delhiites."People of Delhi know that if any party has brought true development to Delhi then it is the Congress. The proof of our 15 years of governance is still visible and people are aware of it," he said.Talking about the thumping defeat handed out the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Sibal further emphasized that the result was a warning that the people of Delhi will not take kindly to being neglected by the government.Being careful to not implicate Congress Delhi unit chief Ajay Maken, who offered to resign post the loss, Sibal noted that any decision taken by the former for the MCD polls was for the benefit of the party, and it would be unwise to accuse him of anything else.


"Whatever step Maken took before going into polls, I'm sure it was for the benefit of the party. Maybe he thought that bringing in youth leaders would have garnered more young votes. But with experience you come to know that you can't be alone," he said.

In other news: Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who co-founded the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, on Thursday said the people of Delhi rejected the latter in the recently-held MCD polls as he failed to deliver any of the promises he made to them during the campaign.

Bhushan later moved on and co-founded the Swaraj India party.

Bhushan asserted that 'immature' Kejriwal kept on blaming either the Lieutenant General or Prime Minister Narendra Modi for every folly and this blame-game of his irked the people.

"It is very unfortunate that a party which was formed on a promise of alternative politics, on the promise of practising transparency, accountability, internal democracy and not resorting to power politics broke all promises. It became like a ordinary conventional political party," said Bhushan.

The AAP members have blamed the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for its defeat.

Following the BJP's victory in the MCD polls, Congress leaders like Ajay Maken, Gurudas Kamat and P.C. Chacko also announced their resignations from their posts.

The BJP has swept the polls to Delhi's three municipal corporations, North, East and South winning 181 seats out of 270 seats.

The party succeeded in retaining power in the three civic bodies for the third consecutive term.The AAP with 48 seats finished second, Congress with 29 seats third. Twelve seats went to others including Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Independents.

When you're sexy and you know it! 

Vinod Khanna, the politician, on the campaign trail. 

Feroz Khan, who was Vinod Khanna's co-star in the blockbuster film Qurbani, also died on this date in 2009. 

Anupama Chopra‏ @anupamachopra My memory of Vinod Khanna - him and Kavita singing Aaj jaane ki zid na karo at a party. He was warm, smiling and so handsome. RIP


Isha Ambani‏ @TheIshaAmbani  Rest In Peace Legend Actor Shri Vinod Khanna Ji !!


SantoshSivanASC. @santoshsivan   Vinod Khanna ji was truly an awesosome person RIP


Shobhaa @DeShobhaa   RIP  Vinod Khanna. The last of the  great Bollywood stars. A superb actor. And fine man.


ARMAAN MALIK‏ @ArmaanMalik22 Rest in peace #VinodKhanna ji. You were Amar, you are Amar will always remain Amar for all of us in our hearts.

Rishi Kapoor @chintskap tweets: Will miss you Amar. RIP.


The actor played the role of 'Amar' to Rishi Kapoor's 'Akbar' and Amitabh Bachchan's 'Anthony' in the superhit film Amar, Akbar, Anthony.  

Veteran actor Vinod Khanna (70), who was admitted to HN Reliance Foundation and Research Centre in Girgaum in south Mumbai, passes away. He was suffering from cancer.

The actor had been hospitalised since March 31. At the time, pictures of the frail and emaciated actor had gone viral, sparking concerns about his health. Khanna was the sitting MP from Gurdaspur.

Khanna acted in lead roles in many superhit films and is best remembered for his performance in Mere Apne, Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Gaddaar (1973 film), Jail Yatra, Imitihaan, Inkaar, Kuchhe Dhaage, Amar Akbar Anthony, Rajput, Achanak, Qurbani, Kudrat, Dayavan, Kaarnama, Dilwaale.

Khanna's sons Akshaye and Rahul, from his first marriage (to Geetanjali Khanna) are also actors, while he also has two children, a son Saakshi and daughter Shraddha, from his second marriage (to Kavita Khanna).

After making his debut in 1968, Khanna was first seen in small second lead roles or negative roles. In 1982, at the peak of his film career, Khanna decided to quit the film industry briefly to follow his spiritual guru Osho Rajneesh.

After a five-year hiatus, he returned to the Hindi film industry to give hit films Insaaf and Satyamev Jayate.

Khanna then joined politics in 1997 and got elected from Gurdaspur on a BJP ticket in the next year's Lok Sabha poll.

Later, during the time of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government he became Union minister for culture and tourism in 2002. He also became a minister of state in the Ministry of External Affairs. Khanna lost the 2009 election, but was elected again from Gurdaspur in 2014.

That's the picture we would like to remember him by.

Mr Hotness! Vinod Khanna in the Cinthol soap ad in the eighties.

"For the people of Gurdaspur, inhabiting a world of numbing ordinariness, a vote for Vinod Khanna is a vote for a sea-change in their world. A chance to reach out, to grab a star, and to anchor it in their midst."

From the Rediff.com archives, our 1998 piece on the campaign trail with Vinod Khanna in Gurdaspur. Do read

That's the young Vinod Khanna in the 1960s. The image was tweeted by ‏ @IndiaHistorypic

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal will be holding a damage control or rather an emergency meet with his MLAs in the wake of the drubbing in the MCD polls yesterday. A barrage of MLAs have offered to resign after the party's sorry performance in the polls.

Yesterday, AAP MLA Alka Lamba offered to resign owning "responsibility" for the party's poor show in the three wards she was responsible for in the Delhi Municipal Election polls.

Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh has also offered to resign as in-charge of the Punjab unit of the party. Singh said he has sent his resignation to partys national convenor Arvind Kejriwal. Durgesh, deputy in-charge of the Punjab unit, has also put in his resignation, Singh said.

Dilip Pandey, the AAPs Delhi unit convener, also stepped down taking moral responsibility for the defeat.

The offer to step down comes a day after the party suffered a setback in the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections winning in just 45 wards out of the total 272 and finishing a far second behind the BJP.

PM Narendra Modi has launched the UDAN scheme, a regional air connectivity programme under which the fares of flights will be capped at Rs 2500 for an hour-long flight of 500 km.

The PM launched the UDAN scheme from Shimla. UDAN an acronym for Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik, is aimed at boosting regional connectivity, PTI reported. Flights were launched on the Kadapa-Hyderabad, Nanded-Hyderabad and Shimla-Delhi sectors.

Airlines will block 50% seats for cheap travel.
Five airlines, 128 routes to connect  70 airports.  The PM said he Wants to see poor people fly and said tier-2 and  tier-3 cities are becoming growth engines. If aviation connectivity is enhanced in these places, it will be beneficial, he said. 

As India's most restive region stares down the abyss of what a commentator calls another "hot summer of violence", the doom-laden headline has returned with a vengeance: Is India losing Kashmir?

Last summer was one of the bloodiest in the Muslim-dominated valley in recent years. Following the killing of influential militant Burhan Wani by Indian forces last July, more than 100 civilians lost their lives in clashes during a four-month-long security lockdown in the valley. Read more

... Thus it was that Bijaykumar Bhattacharya, Jyotishchandra Roy, and Upendranath Das came to the village of Nabagram (literally 'new village'), some 17 kilometres south of the town of Burdwan, in 1935, and set up a school called Vidyalaya, where they hoped to put into practice the educational ideas and ideals of the charismatic spokesperson of the new language of non-violent struggle whom they had accepted as their political and spiritual guru - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, still not universally anointed as a mahatma.

"This was two years before the famed Wardha Educational Conference, where Gandhi laid out, in some detail, his scheme of a new kind of practical national education that he called nai talim (lit. 'new educationraining') or buniyadi siksha ('basic education')."

Read more here.

Update on the Damascus airport explosion: Explosions were heard near Damascus's airport on Thursday morning, allegedly caused by an Israeli airstrike.

Foreign media reports suggest that Israel was responsible for the attack, and that an initial missile strike against a weapons warehouse belonging to government forces caused fuel silos to explode, leading to a cascade of explosions that damaged a few nearby homes.

According to reports, explosions were also reported in the Al-Mazzeh area of Damascus, apparently at the Mazzeh Air Base, a military airstrip used by regime forces.

Israel is widely believed to have carried out airstrikes on advanced weapons systems in as well as Hezbollah positions, but it rarely confirms such operations on an individual basis.

Last month, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said the country only carries out raids in Syria for three reasons: when Israel comes under fire, to prevent arms transfers, and to avert imminent terror attacks on Israel by groups on its borders

Stock markets came off their peak and turned weak today after three back-to-back sessions of gains as the benchmark Sensex slipped in view of April derivatives expiry. Besides, weak Asian cues weighed on sentiment. Investors are looking forward to US President Donald Trump's plan for the US tax system.

The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) has apprehended 23 Indian fishermen and seized their four boats off the Gujarat coast, according to an official of the National Fishworkers' Forum. The fishermen had sailed from Porbandar a few days ago and were apprehended by the PMSA near the International Maritime Border Line, Forum secretary Manish Lodhari told PTI.

"We have learnt that at least 23 fishermen on four boats were apprehended by the PMSA near Jakhau and they were being taken to Karachi," Lodhari said. Porbandar-based National Fishworkers' Forum (NFF) is the only national federation of small and traditional fish workers' unions in India.

On April 9, four PMSA commandos had drowned while two others were saved by Indian fishermen after a boat of the Pakistani agency capsized near the IMBL while allegedly trying to capture around 40 fishermen on seven boats in Indian waters. The PMSA had later released the captured fishermen.

Following Monday's ghastly Maoist strike in Sukma that claimed the lives of 25 CRPF personnel, the government has asked the security forces to focus counter-offensive operations on "high value targets", including south Bastar divisional commander Raghu, head of Jagargunda area committee Papa Rao, and commander of the first battalion of People's Liberation Guerrilla Army Hidma, who is said to be behind the latest attack.

A massive explosion hit near the Damascus International Airport in the early hours of today, a monitoring group said, without specifying the cause. "The blast was huge and could be heard in Damascus," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Amid hectic negotiations over a joint presidential candidate by the opposition, Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar on Wednesday met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and discussed the current political situation.

Gandhi has been spearheading the opposition unity in putting up a joint candidate to replace Pranab Mukherjee and has held a series of meeting with several leaders recently.

Amid talk of a joint presidential candidate being put up by non-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, Pawar discussed the issue with Gandhi during a half-an-hour meeting at her residence.

Pawars name is also doing the rounds among the probable joint opposition candidate for the presidential poll slated in July.

Gandhi had yesterday met Janata Dal-United leader Sharad Yadav, whose name is among one of the probable candidates. However, Yadav had termed the meeting as a mere courtesy call.

She has earlier met Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja over the issue. -- PTI