Our Correspondent reports from New Delhi that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh will interact with eight editors on Wednesday at 7 Race Course Road. Meet the editors, is the new drill devised by Harish Khare, media advisor to the prime minister, to project a proper image of Dr Manmohan Singh in language dailies. Accordingly, editors of two regional television news channels will also be included in the meeting.

After the Red Army, comes the Blue Army, and it is not what you dirty minds think it is.

The Chinese military has set up 'Online Blue Army', a dedicated web network to beef up the internet security of its defence installations from cyber attacks.

The 'Online Blue Army', or OBA, is based on the People's Liberation Army, and enforcing the ability of Internet security protection is an important issue in its military training programs, Chinese defence ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said.

Geng's comments came in response to questions if the OBA is China's Internet squad aimed at carrying out attacks on other countries' Internet systems, the State-run Peoples Daily reported. Geng said his country will not carry out cyber wars.

The Peoples Daily had reported that the PLA's Guangzhou command had invested tens of millions of yuan in building the specialised Internet squad.

The Maharashtra Wildlife Board on Monday turned down the Bombay Natural History Society's proposal to declare the forest owlet as the new state bird. With this refusal, the yellow-footed green pigeon (Hariyal in Marathi) will continue to remain Maharashtra's state bird.

The state wild life authorities said that since the forest owlet is a very rare bird, it cannot become a state bird. The BNHS had urged the state forest department to declare the critically-endangered and rare forest owlet, which is unique and endemic only to Maharashtra, as the state bird.

A delegation from the parliamentary standing committee on defence comprising  30 members with six officers of Lok Sabha secretariat will be on a visit to Mumbai from June 29 to 30. The delegation will be headed by Satpal Maharaj. During the visit the delegates will visit the headquarters of the Western Naval Command to interact with senior officers. Thereafter the delegates will visit Mazagon Dock Ltd to see the facilities for the construction of warships. On June 30 they will leave for Goa to see the naval facilities and shipyards there.

Petrol pump dealers in Maharashtra have threatened to observe a two-day strike in Mumbai from July 2, to protest against the government policy of withdrawal of protection of petrol pump lands under the Maharashtra Rent Control Act.

"We are protesting against the withdrawal of protection of petrol pump lands under the Maharashtra Rent Control Act and the consequential eviction and shutting down of petrol pumps by landlords, which is leading to total disruption in fuel supplies to the metropolis. All petrol, diesel and CNG pumps will remain shut on July 2 and 3," Petrol Dealers' Association President Ravi Shinde said in a statement issued today.

A man, who allegedly sold his wife for Rs 15,000 in Kerala's Kasargod district to foot his liquor bills, has been arrested.

The arrest, two days ago, was on the basis of a complaint filed by the woman that her husband Prasad (29), a rubber tapper, had allegedly sold her to his close friend Manoj, also a rubber tapper, in January this year, the police said.

He was later produced before a court and remanded to 14 days judicial custody.

The woman had filed a complaint before the Hosdurg first class magistrate court following which the police had been directed to register a case and enquire. The case was registered last month, Hosdurg deputy SP Josy Cherian said.

Under fire for its decision to restrict the 2015 World Cup to 10 teams, the ICC today decided to reinstate the associate nations by reverting to the 14-team format for the mega event.

The ICC in April had decided to restrict the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand to top 10 nations only, much to the dismay of the associate nations like Ireland and the Netherlands who strongly protested the decision.

The decision to put a cap on the teams had come due to criticism of the tournament's lengthy format.

OK, here's something that we in India have always known, but it takes courage for a Pakistani to say it, especially a politician.

Pakistan cannot afford to match the induction of modern weaponry by India, which possibly has a greater capacity to sustain a war, Pakistani Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar has said.

"If we only try to match them (India) militarily and buy the sort of armament which they have, we will probably not be able to afford it," Mukhtar said.

Explaining his contention, he noted that India's economy is "six to seven times bigger than" Pakistan's and its trade volumes were "five to six times greater".

"The capacity of India and Pakistan to fight was for 20 to 22 days. Now India has inducted a lot of armaments, may be they can last for 45 days, we will not be able to do so," Mukhtar said in an interview to BBC Urdu.

And now, let's sit back and await the fallout back in Pakistan....

Myanmar's pro-democracy icon and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi today said India should do more to support the democratic movement in her country instead of putting its trade and strategic interests in the forefront.

In a discussion after delivering the previously recorded Reith Lecture titled 'Securing freedom,' 66-year-old Suu Kyi told a BBC Radio 4 audience that she expected India to be committed to democratic principles for which it was known, and to do more to support the democracy movement in Burma.

Asked by political writer Timothy Garden Ash if she expected "the country of Gandhi" to do more to support the non-violent movement, Suu Kyi said: "Oh certainly, I think so, and I say that ad nauseum."

And to move on to the anguish of someone we deeply admire, here's Javed Akhtar on Twitter:

Dignity has gone out of fashion. Yester years celebrities were like leather bound library editions. Today's are like paper backs .

Disgraced nuclear scientist AQ Khan has said he did Pakistan a favour by making the atomic bomb but was "stabbed in the back by the very people who benefited most" from his work -- the army.

Khan, who now gets a "special pension" from the Pakistani army, also contended that India and Pakistan have not fought a war since 1971 because both countries possess a nuclear deterrence and are aware of the consequences of using atomic weapons.

"The deterrence of nuclear weapons lies in the fact that both sides know that the other can retaliate in kind," he said in an interview to Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.

Pointing out that there were no wars in Europe since 1945 due to the presence of the nuclear deterrence, he said the same was true "between India and Pakistan since 1971."

You can read the interview with Der Spiegel here

An officer at Scotland Yard is said to be facing criminal charges in Britain after he allegedly left two police dogs bake to death in the back of his sweltering car, a media report said.

The Scotland Yard said it has launched a probe into the deaths of the two deaths, and that the Independent Police Complaints Commission was also informed, the Daily Express newspaper reported.

The dogs -- a Belgian Malinois and a German shepherd puppy -- were left inside the unventilated car, with all its windows closed, on Sunday as temperatures on that day reached 86F, the report said. The vehicle was parked at the Metropolitan Police's specialist dog training facility in Kent.

Cops broke in after worried staff spotted the animals collapsed on the back seat. The dogs were taken to a vet but died soon after.

And, for some levity, here's a tweet by @diogeneb: A bunch of south indians was secretly getting high on upma. Until cops busted their rava party.

In further embarrassment to the CPI-M in Kerala, another local party leader was arrested today by the crime branch probing the alleged rape of a minor girl by 100-odd persons, including her father, taking the total number of accused arrested so far to 42.

The accused, Eldo K Mathew, a CPI-M local committee leader of Puthencuruz in Ernakulam district, was arrested this morning, Crime Branch SP S Surendran, told PTI.

Crime Branch sleuths had earlier arrested Thomas Varghese, the CPM's local secretary of Mazhavannoor. He was later expelled from the party.

Myanmar's pro-democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi may have been freed in November by the military junta after seven years, but that doesn't mean actress Michelle Yeoh, who is portraying the former in a Hollywood film, has it any easier.

The former Bond girl, who arrived in  plays pro-democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi in an upcoming film, arrived in Yangon to meet Suu Kyi, only to find herself deported by the next flight and blacklisted by the military government.

Yeoh had met Suu Kyi in Yangon in December, to get inputs for French director Luc Besson's biopic which has already had some scenes shot in Thailand. The film is expected to be released later this year.

The Indian mission in will not have to pay taxes worth USD 42.5 million on its property in New York City, with the US Supreme Court upholding a federal appeals court decision to exempt taxes on property owned by foreign governments, reports PTI.

In 2010, 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld the State Department intervention in 2009, which exempts taxes on property owned by foreign governments and UN missions that housed diplomatic staff.

In 2008, a federal district judge had ruled that India, which owns a 26-storey property near the United Nations, owed USD 42.5 million and Mongolia owed USD 4.4 million.

Ten Students Federation of India activists and five police personnel were injured when violence broke out during a march by the students to the collectorate in Kottayam to protest against the UDF government's policies on self-financing the education sector.

The police said the SFI students pelted stones at them when they were prevented from breaking the police cordon to enter the the locked district collectorate on Monday. The police then lobbed teargas shells and cane-charged them, they said.

The students and police personnel who suffered minor injuries were treated at the district hospital.

So has Aishwarya Rai been dropped from Madhur Bhandarkar's Heroine, produced by UTV owing to her pregnancy (which, if true, leaves the producers open to a lawsuit)? Or has the film been shelved for the time being, and resume once the Bachchan baby is due in November?

Even as the media is full of speculation over the matter, here comes a non-statement from UTV:

'At this point nothing is more important than Aishwarya's well being and good health,' the non-release states, and we agree wholeheartedly. 'In that context, we have all mutually agreed that the best step would be to avoid shooting further, rather than proceeding with an incredibly demanding schedule over the coming months. Even as we will truly miss this opportunity to work with Aishwarya, the entire unit wishes her the very best for the exciting time ahead, as she and Abhishek move into this special new phase in their lives.'

The sentiment in the UTV press release is indeed touching, but we think it confuses more than it clarifies!

The tussle between the new West Bengal government headed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Tatas over the Singur land allocation has deepened.

Days after the state government notified the taking back of land allotted to Tata Motors for its still-born Tata Nano project (which was gleefully welcomed by Gujarat's Narendra Modi), Tata Motors has moved the Supreme Court against the Calcutta high court's refusal to stay the government's Singur land reacquisition.

As they say, the last word on the matter is far from being written.

The rain gods may be playing hide and seek with Mumbai, where denizens hae been spending their waking hours hoping for rains, but Delhi, as in other departments, has stolen a march over the commercial capital here as well.

Monsoon showers have been lashing the city today for the third consecutive day, resulting in slow movement of traffic and water-logging in several areas. The city received a total of 2.6 mm of rains over the last 24 hours ending at 8.30 am this morning, the Met office said, and that the city will continue to receive intermittent rains throughout the day as well as in the next couple of days.

The rains affected the flow of traffic in several areas including Okhla, ITO, Janakpuri, Laxmi Nagar and R K Puram. Water-logging was reported from several parts of the city.

After a gap of six years, the United States has taken India off the human trafficking 'Watch List' for making significant efforts in combating the menace.

In its annual Trafficking in Persons report, the US State Department has upgraded India to Tier 2 countries after keeping it on a 'Watch List' for six years.

The Watch List is for those countries where the number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing and there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat it.

Los Alamos, home to the nuclear laboratory, is witnessing a wildfire that has seen thousands of residents of the town evacuate their homes, and which even led to a spotfire in the compound of the nuclear lab.

The wildfire, which broke out on Sunday, has been sending up tall plumes of smoke and ash has been raining down. Officials of the nuclear laboratory, however, said the spotfire, in the area where underground nuclear explosives were tested 50 years ago, has since been put out. No radioactive materials on the laboratory complex have been damaged in the fire, the officials have announced, although the lab has been closed as a precautionary measure.

The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex extended its gains for the fourth day on Tuesday by adding almost 96 points in opening trade today amid positive cues from other Asian bourses following overnight gains in the US market.

The 30-share index, which has gained 862 points in the previous three trading sessions, added 95.91 points to 18,508.32 points in the first few minutes of trade today.

Similarly, the broad-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty moved up by 21.30 points to 5,557.90.

The Gorakhdham Express today rammed into a bus at the Bodaki railway crossing in Greater Noida, leading to the derailment of its engine.

A gate man was injured in the mishap and rail traffic was briefly disrupted on the Delhi-Howrah rail line, the police said.

The mishap took place this morning when a bus was crossing the track and developed some technical problem. The gate man was trying to push the vehicle from the track when the Gorakhdaham Express hit the bus and dragged it over a hundred metres.

The engine of the train derailed due to the impact of the collision. There were no passengers in the bus and the driver had managed to jump to safety.

Good morning, and welcome to another day of Live News Updates. The first update of the day concerns economic reforms, which some say have been stalled as the government lacks the political will to push them forward.

However, in Washington, DC, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday strongly refuted observations by US think-tanks, the government and industry that India has gone slow on economic reforms and insisted that a series of reforms are in the process which will lead to the next round of growth.

Reform is a continuous process and the UPA government is committed to it. "The more you reform, there is the need for additional reform," he argued addressing a meeting of India and American corporate leaders, policy makers and think-tank members at a conference on the 'US-India Economic and Financial Partnership' jointly organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Brookings Institute, a Washington-based think-tank