Social activist Anna Hazare will hold a two-day protest at Jantar Mantar later this month against the recent amendments in the Land Acquisition Act by the Centre.

The agitation will be supported by several farmers' organisations and many other social activists including Medha Patkar will participate in it. 

"The two-day protest starting February 23 will focus on the recent anti-farmers amendments in the Land Acquisition Act made by the Narendra Modi government. Farmer organisations across the country will participate in the agitation. Medha Patkar is also expected to join the agitation," Hazare's office said. 

Hazare will reach the national capital on the morning of February 23. Prior to this, he will go to Palwal in Haryana and participate in a farmers' agitation there. 

This will be Hazare's first visit to the national capital after the landslide victory of his one time aide and AAP chief 

Arvind Kejriwal. 

Incidentally, the AAP too have voiced his opposition to the amendments made in the Land Acquisition Act. 

"We will support Annaji's 'sangharsh'. We respect him. Whatever order he gives, I will follow it. We support his stand and his order is an instruction for us. His struggle is, however, away from political parties. Still, I will ask time from him and if he gives me time then I will certainly meet him. I request everyone to support him in his crusade," senior AAP leader Kumar Vishwas said.

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan felt honoured Sunday to do commentary for the India-Pakistan match of ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 with cricket legends like Kapil Dev and Rahul Dravid.

He took to Twitter to share his experience.

"Commentary for the India Pak match over, an honor to be in the room as legends -- Kapil, Rahul, Shoaib ... predicted 300 .. got it !!" Big B tweeted Sunday.

Angry with their team's defeat at the hands of arch-rival India in a cricket World Cup match, Pakistani fans today came out on the streets in Karachi and smashed their TV sets to express disappointment.

Cricket-crazy fans in Pakistan woke up early to watch the eagerly anticipated clash between the arch-rivals in Adelaide hoping that the Misbah-ul-Haq-led side will change history but were left fuming as their team suffered its sixth straight loss to India in ODI World Cups. 

A Pakistani TV channel showed visuals of people taking to streets with TV sets and smashing them to pieces to show their anger at the Pakistan team's showing. 

Giant screens had been put up at many public places as people gathered to watch the high-voltage clash but were left extremely disappointed with the outcome, Samaa TV reported. 

It was the most eagerly awaited match of the World Cup and the venue -- Adelaide Oval -- was 'under virtual siege' as Indian fans took complete control of the city outnumbering their Pakistani counterparts.

Indians and Pakistanis also exchanged barbs on the social media. 

Pakistan will directly import engines from Russia to manufacture its JF-17 Thunder fighter jets. The engines were earlier imported via China.

According to sources in ministry of defence production, China has recently issued no objection certificate to Pakistan, which was earlier producing the fighter jet as a joint venture with China.

"The Chinese NOC now allows Pakistan to import fighter jet engines from Russia directly," a source said. "This will not only reduce the cost of production of the fighter jet but will also lead to enhanced defence cooperation between Russia and Pakistan."

Islamabad and Moscow had recently agreed to boost cooperation in several spheres including that of defence during the recent Russian defence ministers visit to Pakistan. "This is a significant move since Pakistan had never struck any direct defence deal with Russia," the sources said.

Fans in Mumbai celebrating India's 76 run victory over Pakistan in their first World Cup match turned up outside the residence of cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar.

A puzzled Sachin, who was part of the World Cup-winning India squad in the last edition of the tournament, later tweeted: 'Don't know what I did.. some fans are outside my house... Celebrating... Wish I could have joined them!'

Petrol price was today hiked by 82 paisa per litre and diesel by 61 paisa, reversing the declining trend of last six months.

Petrol and diesel price hike, which is effective from midnight tonight, is the first increase since August 2014 and follows firming of oil prices in the international market. 

A litre of petrol in Delhi will cost Rs 57.31 from tomorrow as against Rs 56.49 currently while diesel will cost Rs 46.62 per litre as against Rs 46.01 at present, oil companies announced here today.

Prices of petrol and diesel were last revised downwards on February 4 by Rs 2.42 per litre and Rs 2.25 per litre respectively. This decrease in prices was effected on the back of declining international oil prices.

Prior to today's increase, petrol price had been cut on 10 occasion since August and diesel six times since October.      

Even after today's increase, petrol price is the lowest since September 2010 while diesel is cheapest since March 2013.

Cumulatively, petrol had been cut by Rs 17.11 per litre in ten reductions since August and diesel by Rs 12.96 a litre since its deregulation in October. 

The reduction would have been bigger but for four consecutive excise duty hikes since November totalling Rs 7.75 a litre on petrol and Rs 7.50 on diesel.

Ganga will be cleaned in a "qualitatively manner" within next two years, Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti said here today. 

"The plan for cleaning Ganga was made in 1985 but nothing happened in that direction in the last 29 years. As per my plan, we will clean Ganga in a qualitative manner in two years," Bharti said.

She was addressing the concluding session of a three-day long River Festival organised by 'Narmada Samagra' NGO at the confluence of Narmada and Tawa rivers at Bandrabhan in Hoshangabad district.

She said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given her a free hand in cleaning the sacred river and all ministries are with her department for the purpose. 

Bharti said her ministry was taking all possible measures for the conservation of rivers in the country and efforts are being made to ensure that no river is dried up. 

"Rivers will be inter-linked to ensure continuous flow of water in them, like linking of Ken-Betwa-Narmada-Kshipra rivers in Madhya Pradesh," she said.

A group of 35 people on Sunday "re-converted" to Hinduism as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad continued with its 'ghar vapasi' programme despite criticism from various quarters, with the outfit claiming that they hailed Dalit families who had converted to Christianity a few generations back.

The rituals for "welcoming" these people to "their original faith" were held at a temple at Uzhavoor near Kottayam, said Aneesh Balakrishnan, a spokesman for pro-VHP "Kerala Hindu Helpline."

They belonged to 12 families of Cheramar community, "who had converted to Christianity a few generations back," he said.

With these 're-conversion', in Kottayam district alone 120 peopled had "returned" to the Hindu faith in the last three months, Balakrishnan said.

The VHP has also organised 're-conversion' programmes in Alappuzha and Idukki districts in the last three months. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated Indian cricket team for their 76-run World Cup victory over Pakistan.

In a Twitter message, Modi wrote: 'Congrats Team India. Well played. We are very proud of you."

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and will undergo a surgery tomorrow.

The robot-assisted keyhole prostatectomy will be carried out by Professor Christopher Cheng, the lead urologist at the Singapore General Hospital, the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement today.

The prime minister decided on the surgical treatment option on the advice of a panel of doctors led by Cheng. The decision was taken after an MRI on Lee's prostate, performed in January, showed suspicious lesions, and a subsequent biopsy found that one out of 38 samples contained cancer cells.

Lee is expected to recover fully, the statement said. 

It cited data from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre that shows patients with a similar medical profile and treatment have a cancer-specific survival rate of 99 per cent at 15 years.

The prime minister will be on medical leave for one week during which Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean will be acting prime minister.

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand today played out a draw with his 2008 challenger Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in the first round of the Zurich Chess Challenge.

Playing his first game against Kramnik since December last, Anand could not do much with white pieces as Kramnik played a variation, which is being revived at the top level after a long time.

American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura continued from where he had left the Gibraltar International tournament and put it across Fabiano Caruana of Italy. 

The other game of the day between Levon Aronian of Armenia and Sergey Karjakin of Russia also ended in a draw, making Nakamura an early sole leader. 

Nakamura moved to two points with his victory, an important one considering that it came with black pieces and against the top rated player in the tournament.

The tournament has a unique points system in place that gives two points in every win in Classical chess and one for a draw. Once the Classical round-robin is over, six players will change gears to the rapid chess with reversed colours and in that each win will only give one point with half a point secured in case of draw.

Top cricketers Yuvraj Singh and Hashim Amla will be the star attractions in IPL 8 auctions that will see quite a few Indian and International players going under the hammer in Bengaluru on Monday.

Last year's most expensive buy, Yuvraj, who was picked by Royal Challengers Bangalore for Rs. 14 crores, will once again be one of the biggest names to hit the auction table this time around.

The other marquee players that will be auctioned, apart from Yuvraj, include former Delhi Daredevils captain Kevin Pietersen and their costliest player last year, Dinesh Karthik.

South Africa's Amla is another big fish waiting to be bought by the franchises, who will be ready with their respective strategic teams. 

The other top flight players who will be up for auction this year include Mahela Jayawardene, Eoin Morgan, Kumar Sangakkara, Murali Vijay, Darren Sammy, Angelo Mathews, Aaron Finch and Alex Hales.

The auction will be conducted by Richard Madley, a professional auctioneer from England who has been conducting the player auctions since the inaugural IPL season in 2008.

Seeking a 'new beginning' in bilateral ties, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday left for a four-day state visit to India, his maiden foreign trip after he assumed charge last month.

During the visit, the 63-year-old leader is expected to meet his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee besides holding talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on key issues, including peace and reconciliation process in his country. 

According to presidential advisors, the Lankan president is desirous of making a new beginning in the Indo-Lanka relations after bilateral ties suffered under Sirisena's predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa over India's backing to US-moved resolutions at the UN rights body over alleged warcrimes.

"We will be making a new beginning with India," acting government spokesman and Minister Lakshman Kiriella said. 

Sirisena, who dethroned Rajapaksa after a bitter presidential poll on January 9, has indicated that he wants to have closer relations with India. 

India has been hoping that the new government will develop Lanka on the "foundation of genuine and effective reconciliation" creating harmony between all sections there.

A group of people on Sunday staged a demonstration in front of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Kaushambi house over demolition of few jhuggis in Shahdara area.

Eight jhuggis were yesterday demolished at Chhota Nagar near Ghuggi Pahalwan area in Shahdara exactly at the time when Kejriwal was taking oath at Ramlila Maidan as the new chief minister of Delhi.

"Just see the brutality of the officers. They not only smashed up our household things and abused us, but also women constables manhandled us and did not even spare our small children," alleged Vijaywati (30) who was protesting along with 40 others in front of the CM's residence on Sunday morning. 

Local police, however, said that these people were trying to build jhuggis on government land and the police personnel just stopped them from doing so when informed.

"In fact, police never demolishes any construction on its own. It is the job of land owning agency. Our role is limited to providing security during any such drive to maintain law and order," said a senior police official.

Several dwellers were allegedly left injured during the incident.

The protesters also hit out at local AAP MLA Ram Nivas Goyal.

The man believed to be involved in twin shooting attacks at a cafe and a synagogue in Danish capital Copenhagen has been shot dead, police said Sunday.

The police said that according to the video surveillance the man who they killed, was the same who staged shooting at a free speech event at Krudttoenden cafe in the capital on Saturday and also at Copenhagen`s main synagogue early Sunday.

"We believe the same man was behind both shootings and we also believe that the perpetrator who was shot by the police action force at Noerrebro station is the person behind the two attacks," Chief police inspector Torben Moelgaard Jensen told a press conference, according to an AFP report.

The Danish police shot dead a man who opened fired on the cops at Noerrebro station - not far from the sites of earlier attacks.

After the police called out to the man, he "opened fire against the police and was thereafter shot", police said in a statement.

Just hours after the deadly attack at a cafe event in Danish capital Copenhagen left one person dead and three injured, another shooting incident was reported at a synagogue at Krystalgade which claimed another life.

Trinamool Congress General Secretary Mukul Roy today rubbished reports that he was looking to form a new political outfit, a day after party chief Mamata Banerjee virtually initiated the process of clipping the wings of the party number two in a major reshuffle of its organisation.

"I do not want to comment on matters which are not related to reality," Roy told PTI when asked about reports that he was aiming to split Trinamool Congress and form a new party. 

The comments came a day after Roy was left out in the cold by Banerjee in its organisational shake-up. 

In what was described as a move designed to clip Roy's wings, Banerjee yesterday brought about a major reshuffle of the TMC organisation. 

She made her close associate Subrata Bakshi the new All-India Additional General Secretary of the party and elevated former Union Minister Dinesh Trivedi to the vice-president's post.

Roy, who has been made to share responsibility with Bakshi, was conspicuous by his absence from the closed-door meeting convened at Banerjee's residence to discuss the party's preparedness for the upcoming civic polls.

The Sindh High Court has reportedly declared former President General (retired) Pervez Musharraf "ineligible" for Parliament membership, saying that he did not fulfill the criteria set in Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution.

three-member bench, led by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqir, asserted that the decisions taken by the military strongmen hurt Pakistan's image, reported the Dawn.

The detailed verdict has been released by the court.

Following a four-year-long self-imposed exile, Musharraf came back to Pakistan in March 2013 to contest the May 11 general election.

However, elections officials barred him from running for the National Assembly, thwarting his plans to contest the general election

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan today donned the hat of a cricket commentator during the World Cup match between India and Pakistan at Adelaide, Australia. 

The 72-year-old actor was doing the commentary alongside the likes of Arun Lal, Rahul Dravid, Kapil Dev among others. 

Bachchan's impressive debut as a cricket commentator earned him plaudits from several Bollywood stars. 

Sidharth Malhotra tweeted, "Commentary never sound so impactful @SrBachchan live on #IndvsPak superb (sic)." 

"Amitabh Bachchan on star sports live -- what else do you want -- #IndVsPak @SrBachchan," actor Riteish Deshmukh posted.

Praising Bachchan's commentary, Alia Bhatt said, "Okay even I am up for the match... So you can't take the Indian out of an #IndvsPak match after all!! Oh and you gotta love @SrBachchan."

"What a great morning seeing the India Pakistan match and hearing @SrBachchan commentate," Shahid Kapoor tweeted.

Telecom regulator TRAI is believed to be considering issuing show-cause notice to Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular for not signing agreements with companies interested in providing international calling card services directly to consumers.

"Show-cause notice is ready in the matter (violation of International Calling Card Services Regulations) for Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular. They will be given about a week's time to reply and then further action will be taken," an official source said. 

When contacted, spokespersons of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea declined to comment on the matter. 

There was no reply to queries sent to TRAI. 

Trai has received complaints from interested ILD (International Long Distance) companies that these operators are not signing agreements, thereby violating regulation. 

The regulation, issued in August 2014, was aimed at lowering ISD rates by allowing ILD operators to directly offer their service to consumers. 

A user of a calling card is required to dial a certain prefix code on his/her phone to make calls using network ILD operators. 

Since companies having only ILD cannot have direct access to customers, they are required to go through telecom service providers, mainly mobile operators.

In its fight against black money menace, India will have to wait till 2018 for Switzerland to provide bank account details of Indians under the 'automatic information exchange' framework. 

Under a global framework, more than 40 jurisdictions including India had agreed to become 'early adopters' of an 'automatic exchange of information' mechanism prepared by global body OECD to help each other in fighting the tax evasion and frauds.

"This so-called early adopters group plans to collect data from 2016 and exchange information for the first time in September 2017," according to a new report by the Swiss government. 

However, Switzerland would see its 'first exchange' under this framework taking place in the year 2018. 

As per the report, as many as 58 countries would see their 'first exchange' taking place in 2017, followed by another 35 in the year 2018. 

While India is part of the 'First Exchange 2017' group, it will have to wait till 2018 for 'automatic exchange of information' with Switzerland because of the Alpine nation being in the second grouping. 

The details that would be shared include account number, name, address and date of birth, tax identification number, interest and dividends, receipts from certain insurance policies, credit balances on accounts, as also proceeds from the sale of financial assets.

Two people have been killed and six injured in twin shootings in the Danish capital, with one attack targeting a cultural centre hosting a debate on Islam and free speech.

A gunman sprayed bullets at the Krudttonden cultural centre yesterday as it hosted a seminar in which Lars Vilks -- the Swedish artist whose controversial Prophet Mohammed caricature sparked worldwide protests in 2007 -- was among the speakers.

Hours later, a man was shot in the head and killed near Copenhagen's main synagogue in the city centre. Two policemen were also wounded in the shooting at around 1:00 am this morning, police said.

A 55-year-old man was killed in the first attack, and three police officers wounded. 

Police said they did not have enough information to confirm whether the two shootings, which come just weeks after a series of bloody Islamist attacks in Paris that left 17 people dead, were linked.

A huge manhunt operation was underway in Denmark overnight after the attacker fled following both shootings. Helicopters were heard whirring over the capital in the early hours. 

Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt described the assault on the cultural centre as "a terrorist attack", while the United States branded it "deplorable".

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