The involvement of human traffickers in the case involving 35 Afghan Sikh stowaways, found inside an airtight shipping container on a dockyard in British port, has been confirmed with the arrest of a third person, a media report said on Sunday.

The police arrested a third man in connection with the death, a special investigation by the 'Sunday Telegraph' has confirmed the hand of human traffickers behind the death of one of the Afghan Sikh men and how 34 others, including women and children ended up close to suffocation in the container.

The Indian Air Force today airlifted 180 jawans who were posted at various border area posts along flood-affected Indo-Pak border in Jammu sector.

A total of over 180 BSF and Army jawans were evacuated from various border area posts along Indo-Pak border in Jammu sector today, Air Officer Commanding, Jammu IAF Station, Air Commodore P E Patange told reporters.

Of these, over 80 BSF jawans and over 100 Army jawans have been airlifted from flood-trapped areas, he said. Most of the border belts have been flooded causing threat to posts and jawans their.

Floods have badly hit security infrastructure along Indo- Pak border including Border Out Posts and Fencing as Choppers of Indian Air Force and Army Aviation yesterday airlifted 108 BSF and Army men from forward areas.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah opposed any delay in holding the Assembly polls in the state on the plea of floods and said there would be no difficulty in holding the elections on time.

"It (delay in polls on the plea of flood situation) should not happened. If you want to delay it, the life of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly will expire," he told reporters here in reply to a query.

"If you do not conduct elections till November-December then some of the areas of our state will get cut off," Omar said. The chief minister said, "Then it will not be possible to hold elections till March-April. Then you will say that there should be Governor rule for 3-4 months that is not good for any state."

"We will control the situation, which is bad. I feel that the election can be held at its own time. We feel that there would be no difficulty of holding the election," he added.

Hitting out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the Saradha Ponzi scam, BJP president Amit Shah today alleged associates of Banerjee are involved in the scam and steps will be taken to put them behind bars.

"You (Mamata) are not protesting against duping of 17 lakh investors in the Saradha scam and coming down on the streets, because your own associates and stooges are involved. We need an answer to who took away the Saradha scam money. "We are not afraid of anyone because our workers are not involved in any scam. Whether it's Saradha or anything else, we will do the work of arresting and putting the culprits behind bars," Shah told a rally in central Kolkata.

"You have to reign in your workers and associates who are involved in corruption and scam. If you can't do that then please step down. The BJP will provide good governance in Bengal. The countdown has already started and the people of Bengal will show you the way out in the 2016 Assembly polls," he said.

Daya Reddy, an Indian-origin South African mathematician has been elected as the new president of the International Council for Science. Reddy has been voted by representatives of ICSU's 120 national members and scientific unions attending the organisation's general assembly in Auckland, New Zealand.

The ICSU is a non-governmental organisation with a global membership of 121 national scientific bodies and 31 international scientific unions. South African Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor joined the science community in congratulating Reddy.

"It means a lot for South Africa and for Africa; it shows that our continent is being recognised for its skills, ability to lead and the role we are playing in global science," said Pandor.

"It is a great honour for South Africa, because it recognises the excellent work of our researchers and scientists and their contribution to global bodies," he said. Reddy said he was particularly keen to ensure that ICSU becomes as inclusive as possible, so that, as the voice of science, the body could involve the entire community worldwide.

The Home ministry has asked all state governments to speed up cases against MPs and MLAs facing charges which attract disqualification, directing them to seek day-to-day trial in courts, appoint special public prosecutors and ensure regular monitoring.

The direction came in the wake of Supreme Court setting a deadline to complete trial in cases involving lawmakers.

The step is also in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's direction on July 24 asking the Home Minister and Law Minister to work out a mechanism to settle cases against politicians within a year to cleanse politics from tainted lawmakers.

The 300-km long Jammu-Srinagar national highway remained closed for the fourth consecutive day today due to landslides and sinking of road at various places, even as authorities have launched a massive operation to repair and make it motorable.

"The highway is closed for the fourth consecutive day today," police said, adding that traffic on the highway was suspended due to landslides, washing of road patches, and flooding at various places on Thursday last.

Over 3,000 passenger and commercial vehicles were stranded on the highway at various place in Banihal, Ramban, Batote, Kud, Patnitop, Chenani, Udhampur and Jammu due to closure of the road, they said.

The Border Roads Organisation pressed in service its men and machines as the weather started to become clear and launched a massive clearance and repair operation to reopen the highway for traffic, police added.

"Don't leave an inch of space to the Trinamool Congress government of West Bengal," Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah told BJP workers in Kolkata on Sunday.

"Want a huge victory at 2016 assembly elections, he told the gathering at Bowbazar."Singur affected Rs 100,000, Saradha affected 17 lakh. If Singur brought in change in governance in the state, can't Saradha? Change has been set in motion in Bengal," he said.

After a long time, India has got a prime minister who talks," he said

Photograph: Dipak Chakraborty

Sri Lanka, which has vowed not to cooperate with an international probe into its alleged rights abuses during the final phase of its military campaign against LTTE, will counter the charges at a UNHRC session beginning tomorrow in Geneva.

The external affairs ministry sources said that Sri Lankan Ambassador in Geneva Ravinatha Aryasinha is to make a counter statement on the human rights allegations against the country at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The 27th session of the UNHRC is beginning tomorrow in Geneva.

This will be the first session of the UN rights body after the adoption of Sri Lanka resolution in March. The resolution called for an independent international investigation on the alleged rights abuses in Sri Lanka during the last phase of the military campaign against the LTTE in May 2009.

A one-man inquiry commission probing the Muzaffarnagar riots has recorded 61 more statements including those of social and political activists.

The inquiry commission of Justice (retd) Vishnu Sahai, in its seven-day hearing here, recorded 61 statements and returned to Lucknow last evening, officials said. The commission would summon officers of riots affected districts -- Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Shamli, and Baghpat -- to record their statements in its next sitting in October, they said. The one-member judicial inquiry commission of Justice (retd) Vishnu Sahai, former Judge of Allahabad high court, was constituted by the Uttar Pradesh government last year to probe the Muzaffarnagar violence.

The Commission was also asked to look into administrative lapses, if any, in controlling the violence. 375 statements have been recorded by the commission so far, officials said. More than 60 people were killed and 40,000 displaced during riots in Muzaffarnagar district and neighbouring areas in September last.

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has threatened to drag embattled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the Supreme Court to seek his disqualification for allegedly lying about protesters and the army in parliament, as the political logjam showed no sign of easing.

Khan, the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, in an overnight address to protesters in front of parliament also said that he the sit-in will continue until government accepted his demands including resignation of Sharif.

"The PTI leadership will approach the Supreme Court to get Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif disqualified as he was telling lies on the floor of the National Assembly regarding the leadership of the PTI, PAT and the army," Khan said. He said that Sharif was lying to harm his party and fiery cleric Tahirul Qadri.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today reviewed the flood situation in Jammu region at a high-level meeting attended by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and top officials. Modi, who arrived in Jammu this morning, held the meeting at Jammu's Technical Airport and was briefed by Abdullah on the devastation caused by the floods which have claimed 116 lives, officials said.

The prime minister is scheduled to undertake an aerial survey of the flood-hit areas in Jammu zone, they said. He will later fly to Srinagar for an assessment of the damaged caused by the floods.

The decision on the Prime Minister's visit came following a review meeting which he called after being briefed yesterday by Home Minister Rajnath Singh who returned to the national capital after surveying the flood-affected regions, the Prime Minister's Office had said in a statement.

"After reviewing the situation, the prime minister decided to visit Jammu and Kashmir to personally assess the gravity of the situation and understand the problems being faced by the people," it had said.

Arrested chairman of scam-hit Saradha group Sudipta Sen was planning to apply for a bank licence with a capital of over Rs 1,000 crore funds allegedly cobbled from the money of numerous duped investors, an investigation has revealed.

The business venture, which could have been named 'Saradha bank', was being allegedly planned as a new market foray of the diversified group by Sen, but as investors raised their voices of being cheated early last year, the project could not see the light of the day.

In fresh revelations made by the investigating agencies of this case, the Enforcement Directorate has found and recovered documents which were to be used by the group for applying for a fresh bank licence, an opportunity that was announced by country's banking regulator RBI in February 2013.

The RBI, had then issued guidelines for application procedures for obtaining new bank licences and the deadline for it was kept as July 1. This year in April, the RBI granted licences to two of the total 25 applicant business groups. The banking regulator had advertised this opportunity after almost a decade, the last being in 2003-04.

Government has decided to go ahead with the appointments to various statutory bodies like CVC, NHRC and Lokpal without the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha as a member of the selection committee choosing them.

The move comes following a recent reference from the Lok Sabha secretariat in this regard, official sources said. The Department of Personnel and Training had written to the Lok Sabha seeking information on the LoP. The secretariat has informed the DoPT that there is no recognised LoP in the Lok Sabha, they said.

The government will go ahead with the appointments to various statutory bodies without the LoP, the sources said. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had rejected Congress' demand for LoP status for its nominee.

As Jammu and Kashmir faced the worst flood in nearly six decades, army has launched a major rescue operation and evacuated 11,000 people to safety by deploying 100 columns of troops in flood-hit areas of the state.   

"A total of 11,000 civilians have been rescued, out of these 2,000 people have been provided food and temporary shelter in Jammu and Kashmir," defence spokesman S D Goswamisaid said.   

A total of 100 columns of army, 13 teams of army engineers have been deployed in the Kashmir and Jammu regions,he said. One army column consists of 75 to 100 troops.   

So far, 116 people have lost their lives in flooding, landslides and house collapses in the state.   

The army has intensified its 'Mission Sahayata' and troops are working tirelessly to rescue people trapped in flooded villages, isolated houses and multi-storied buildings in the inundated areas all over Kashmir, Goswami said.  

Flash floods in Pakistan have killed 110 people and left nearly 150 others injured in recent days, authorities said yesterday.

The flooding, caused by monsoon rains, has also destroyed 650 homes, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's office said in a statement.

NDTV reports: Two schoolgirls who were found hanging from the ends of the same rope on a tree in Assam's Karimganj district committed suicide, the postmortem report said, adding the two were not raped.

The girls, both Std 10 dropouts, had been missing since Wednesday evening. Their bodies were found on Thursday morning by relatives, following which the police was informed.

The tree where the two were found hanging is barely 200 metres from the house of one of them, located barely two kilometres from the border with Bangladesh. Locals suspect that the girls were first raped and then killed.

Read the full report here

Over 100 dead, 2600 villages submerged as floods ravage Kashmir

Kejriwal takes Delhi power battle to Rashtrapati Bhavan

Band, Baaja, Bappa: It's a grand farewell party

Gen V K Singh wants govt to appeal Rath verdict

CBI sees Kunal Ghosh as key to Mamata-Saradha puzzle

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