Timeline Refresh
Designation of two long-time members of D Company, Shaikh Anis Ibrahim Kaskar (Anis Ibrahim), the brother of Dawood Ibrahim, and Aziz Moosa Bilakhia (Bilakhia), comes less than a fortnight before US President Barack Obama's visit to India.
Anis is known to be involved in narcotics trafficking, extortion, contract killings, and money laundering on behalf of the D Company. He is also accused of involvement in the 1993 Mumbai blasts.
According to sources, officials of the US Secret Service discussed the overall security set-up for Obama's visit and also sought a certain details regarding the hotel where he would stay, routes he will travel and the places he will visit. They have also asked access to CCTV cameras installed on all the routes to be travelled by the US President and several emergency exit routes were also finalised for Obama's entourage.
In a related development, an interstate co-ordination meeting aimed at strengthening cooperation and coordination in order to address various issues related to policing in NCR was held under the chairmanship of Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi today.
The year ranks as the Earth's warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The ten warmest years on record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000, said scientists.
Twenty five such cabs were flagged off by Bassi and Siddhartha Pahwa, CEO of Meru Cabs, said that in the next couple of months, the number of such cabs will be increased to 300. Other than a woman driver, the cabs will have 3G-enabled mobile phones with 'video recording' facility which would also have a speed dial for All SHOs for distress call number, a panic buzzer, a pepper spray and women helpline numbers displayed on it prominently.
Speaking at the event, Bassi said that with the new service, if women think that they don't want to be driven home by a man, they have an option. Referring to the Uber rape case incident, Pahwa said "last month's incident has forced us to make efforts to make our roads safer."
In a subtle attack on Ilmi on Wednesday, AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal retweeted one of her old tweets, dated November 21, 2013, which said 'Hypocrisy, thy name is BJP'. The tweet by Ilmi, who was in AAP at the time, criticises the BJP and the Congress over its funding.
Founder AAP member Kumar Vishwas posted more than half-a-dozen old Kiran Bedi tweets in which she gave her views on the Congress, the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"One day, Namo (Narendra Modi) will have to respond with clarity about riot massacre," said another tweet posted by Bedi on March 16, 2013.
"We are thinking about contesting the Delhi polls. A final decision will be taken soon. However, there has been no talk so far on a poll alliance with anyone," Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray said today.
Walia a former Delhi minister was defeated by AAP's Somnath Bharti in Malviya Nagar constituency in the 2013 assembly polls. She had won the seat in 1999, 2003 and 2008.
She was the minister for health and education in Sheila Dikshit's cabinet.
"I am happy to her here today. You will see India as a country of opportunities. I assure you that your inputs shall receive the government's highest attention," he said. "The New Age India has also begun its transition from a winter of subdued achievement lasting 3 to 4 years, to a new spring that beckons."
"We can overcome the mood of despair. And we must. It is in this context that all the steps we have taken must be seen," he said.
"The government must nurture an eco-system where the economy is primed for growth and growth promotes all-round development."
Addressing a rally at Trilokpuri, which saw communal riots flaring up some three months back, the former Delhi chief minister accused the BJP of doing "venomous politics."
"The BJP is rattled and nervous. Earlier they sent 200 MPs to campaign in Delhi. I attended one of the rallies and I saw seven MPs on the stage and only ten people on the chairs. When that did not work, it pressed in its ministers."
"When ministers did not work, the prime minister stepped in . When his rally turned out to be a flop, now they have introduced Kiran Bedi and Shazia Ilmi in the party, but let me tell you truth will always prevail," Kejriwal said.
Just before the rally, he took to social media to hit out Bedi and Ilmi for accusing AAP of doing "negative" politics.
The AAP chief said he is fighting to make Delhi a better place while the BJP is fighting to defeat him.
While senior leader and AICC Disciplinary Committee Chairman A K Antony said the party had earlier also cautioned Tharoor against lavishing praises on Modi,
Congress spokesperson P C Chacko came down heavily on his colleague. "On a similar occasion in the past the party has cautioned Tharoor against this after the disciplinary committee examined the matter. I don't want to respond to the latest instance as I have some limitations as the head of the disciplinary committee," Antony told reporters.
He was reacting to the laudatory comments made by Tharoor on Modi in Kolkotta yesterday.
22-year-old Salman Moinuddin, a resident of Asif Nagar in Hyderabad, was stopped by security agencies at the airport yesterday when he was about to take a flight to Dubai. The police say he has confessed that he was going to join the Islamic State.
In Dubai, Moinuddin allegedly planned to join his girlfriend, British national Nicky Joseph, and travel to Syria via Turkey.
Read the full report here
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday also claimed on his Twitter account that Katie is actually Katherine Abraham. However, Swamy later tweeted, "My information is from the police. I made no such claim. I said Katie is a girl called Katherine, but will not identify her because she is not involved in the murder."
India Today reports that according to the social media profile of Katie, she is an author, an aspiring United Nations diplomat and she used #Tharooriyan- a hash tag to support Tharoor.
The Special Investigation Team's probe into the murder mystery of Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor, wife of former Union minister Shashi Tharoor, revealed that a woman called Katie, over whom the couple reportedly argued, is actually Thiruvananthapuram-based author named Katherine Abraham.
India Today reports that Tharoor was constantly in touch with 24-year-old Abraham who is also known as Katie. Tharoor, in fact, retweeted several of Abraham's tweets.
So "let's get someone from outer space," a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva remarked.
The bench was hearing an application seeking that the cameras being put up for the American President's security should not be removed after the event in light of several incidents like the December 16 gang-rape case.
"Because of a foreign President you (government) do it, but not for Indian citizens. If we direct you to do it for Indians, you do in months and years, else you do it in weeks. Let's get someone from outer space," the bench said.
It also issued notices to the Centre, Delhi government and city police and sought their responses on whether the cameras would be removed.
"Will you remove it (cameras)? You take instructions. Notice. Delhi government, Centre and Delhi police seek time for instructions. Renotify on January 30," the bench said. It also remarked, "it will take them years to remove it, if it is not vandalized before that".
The march, held to commemorate the 17 victims of last week's three-day terror spree and to defend the values of tolerance and free speech, was attended by around 1.5 million people, including dozens of heads of state and top diplomats from around the world.
But the US came in for severe criticism from certain media for failing to send any senior officials to the march. It was instead represented by the country's ambassador to France, Jane Hartley.
Earlier today, there was a bomb threat at a Paris train station, after which the station was evacuated.
This comes just a day after funerals were held for four people killed in last week's attack in Paris on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo by militant Islamists.
Friends and family paid last respects to cartoonists Bernard Verlhac, known as Tignous, and Georges Wolinski, as well as a columnist and a policeman.
Seventeen people died in the attacks. Eight magazine staff, a visitor to the magazine and a caretaker died, as well as three police officers and four people at a Jewish supermarket."The bullet struck his lung, and passed through his chest. He is out of immediate danger and he has spoken to his colleagues," Dr. Seemi Jamali, a spokeswoman for Jinnah Hospital where Hassan was taken, told AFP.
The authorities deployed water cannon to disperse the demonstration, near the French consulate in Karachi.
The protest was part of a nationwide rally called by the Jamaat-e-Islami religious party.
Charlie Hebdo featured a cartoon of Muhammad, a week after gunmen carried out a massacre at its offices.
On Thursday, Pakistani politicians passed a motion condemning Charlie Hebdo for publishing the cartoon.Several religious groups called for protests after Friday prayers.
In Karachi, at least three people were injured during clashes between the police and protesters, who were mostly student activists from Jamaat-e-Islami.
The attackers belong to GanimiKawa, a rural organisation which often indulges in moral policing. According to reports in the local media, this particular group was led by Balaji Godse. Local police has registered a case against the accused. Read
Singh says, that he never put any pressure on the censor board to release the film and calls for censor board chief Leela Samson to say why she quit.
He said that while the MSG premiere has not been finalised, there is nothing in the movie that can hurt anyone. "Only one line has been removed, one word has been muted. Protestors should see the movie first and then react. Nobody questioned Amitabh when he pulled of miracles. I am not projectimg myself as god in the movie. The movie is about the menace of drug abuse," he said.
In Punjab various Sikh outfits came out to protest against the screening of 'MSG: Messenger of God.' The temporal seat of the Sikhs, the Akal Takht, had in December last year sought a ban on the movie by the godman who had first hurt the sentiments of the community when he had allegedly dressed up like the Sikh guru, Guru Gobind Singh.
Censor Board members have objected to the portrayal of the controversial dera chief as god.
The film has been dubbed an advertisement which also shows the dera chief performing miracles to cure diseases.
Four from Singapore and one each from India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan were among the 25 people aboard the boat when it capsized while conducting tests in Fubei Channel, near Jingjiang City off the Yangtze River at about 3 pm local time yesterday, the provincial maritime rescue centre said. Three people were rescued so far.
Yesterday, Kiran Bedi, a former Team Anna worker, was inducted into the BJP.
"I dislike to see my party divided," 69-year-old Rajapaksa who ruled the Island nation for a decade said in a statement while handing over the party chairmanship to the new Lankan President Sirisena.
Scores of senior party leaders had joined 63-year-old Sirisena before and after he became the president on January9.
"With effect from today I will be handing over the leadership to President Maithripala Sirisena", Rajapaksa said in a statement.
The United States aims to secure agreements with India to start pilot projects for joint production of drones as well as equipment for transport planes in talks next week ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama, a US industry source said on Wednesday.
The president heard Sampath's recommendation that the government enact a law giving legal teeth to the Election Commission to prosecute law breakers during poll season.
Three neighbouring countries including Pakistan have invested such powers with their Election Commission.
A former CEC cattily remarked that wisdom dawns on authorities when they demit office.
American officials raised concern that terrorists might target the Delhi-Agra Highway which President Obama will take to travel to the Taj city. As per sources, US agents have expressed concern that restaurants and hotels, which fall en route to Agra, might be targeted by terrorists.
US secret service agents have also asked their Indian counterparts to prepare emergency exit routes and dummy routes for President Obama's entourage.
Ramesh, who was also a rural development minister, attended a farmers' meeting in the village.
The Congress has so far been alleging that the ordinance promulgated the government takes away the powers given to the farmers by the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, enacted by the UPA-II regime in 2013.
Ramesh, who wore a green turban typical of Haryana farmers addressed the crowd in fluent Hindi to much applause.
From Parsaul, Ramesh drove straight to the international airport to catch a flight to Paris for his lecture tour junket.Venkaiah told Chandrababu in Telugu that he had three cooks flown in with ingredients (vegetables, chillies, fish) from the Godavari region of Andhra for the meal.
Fingers are still being licked, we believe.
The first minister to meet her will be Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who wants her support on the GST Bill and the Land Acquisition Act.
After Jaitley, this is the line-up: Ravi Shankar Prasad, JN Nadda and Nirmala Sitaraman.
And yes, all the four ministers have got a go-ahead from the PM for the meet and greet.
That's known.
What is not, is that Samson trained Priyanka Gandhi in Bharatnatyam and there are whispers that it is this proximity that helped Samson hold six key positions in the 10 years of UPA regime.
Hours after the Censor Board chairperson Leela Samson leveled charges that the government was interfering in the functioning of the body, the government has come forward and refuted Samsons charges, asserting that it has always maintained a distance from the certification process.
And Kiran Bedi's response...
"I think he is a good person,let him say what he wants to.Have to work,no time to comment on what others say."
"That attack you saw in Paris? You'll see an attack in the United States," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told the New York Times.
Elaborating on how to stop this from happening, he told the Times and CNN that prevention will require a more aggressive strategy from the U.S. military across the greater Middle East, with ground troops and a no-fly zone in Syria and more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This theory was sometimes described during the Iraq war as "we fight them there so we don't have to fight them here.' It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.
Read Fareed Zakaria's column for the Washington Post.
The school was shut for a month after the Tehreek-e-Taliban terrorists massacred 150 people, mostly children in the school.
As traumatised students of the army-run school returned after the unusually long winter break, extended for 12 days due to threat of militants, this picture was posted on Twitter.
Back in school, teenager Talha Munir Paracha posted two images in an attempt to recreate what he had lost. The first image shows Paracha with three friends.
Paracha and another student recreated the photo, but with a gaping hole -- which signified that their two friends had been killed in the incident.
Militants killed 150 people, including 134 students, on December 16, during a 7-hour siege, leading to closure of educational institutions across Pakistan. A tweet by army spokesperson, Maj Gen Asim Bajwa, said Gen Raheel joined the students in the morning assembly. "Standing proudly to sing national anthem," Bajwa said.
Click on the image for a larger picture.
The decision by Samson to resign came amid a row over controversial film 'Messenger of God' featuring Dera Saccha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Reacting to the CBFC chairperson's statement that she had decided to resign because of "recent cases" of interference in the functioning of the Board, Minister of State in the Information and Broadcasting ministry Rajyavardhan Rathore said the ministry has always "kept a hands away distance" from the Censor Board decisions.
"This latest issue of the Chairperson resigning has come to light. I would like to bring to the notice of everyone that the entire Censor Board and all its members were placed by the previous government. None of them have been changed. No additional member has been put in. The extension that the Chairperson has been talking of has been granted to the entire Censor board," Rathore said.
Also read: Censor Board chief quits over Dera Leader's controversial film
Yesterday, actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada said she wants to join the BJP as she is impressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modis leadership.
Everyone is impressed by Modijis leadership. Many big leaders
want to work with him. Similarly, as an activist, I want to join the
party, the former MP said. Her colleague and former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh was talking to BJP leadership (in this regard), she said.
She also said she wanted to put behind her what she called a "very bitter experience" with the Samajwadi Party and its chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.
"They never respected women," Jaya Prada said about the Samajwadi Party.
Deedi Damodaran and her husband Premchand had kissed on a street on December 7 to express their solidarity with the agitation. Premchand was even beaten by Hanuman Sena, which had threatened to thwart the event.
Read more
Tejpal has approached the Supreme Court challenging a Goa session court order to proceed for arguments on charge against him in the alleged sexual assault case without providing him the necessary documents.
The bench is headed by Chief Justice H.L. Dattu.
The appeal, filed by advocate Sandeep Kapur, contended that the session court while passing the December 23, 2014, order was conscious of the recklessness shown by the prosecution to uphold statutory requirements that are obligatory to provide all necessary documents.
It
also claimed that the prosecution had deviated from procedure and
failed to appreciate that speedy trial was barely a facet of fair trial.
He was arrested on November 30, 2013 and is presently out on interim bail. Before being released on interim bail, he was lodged at Sada sub-jail in Goas Vasco town.
He invoked his ethnic heritage to make a call for immigrant assimilation and called people who talked about skin pigmentation as the "most dim-witted lot" around.
"My parents came in search of the American Dream, and they caught it. To them, America was not so much a place, it was an idea. My dad and mom told my brother and me that we came to America to be Americans. Not Indian-Americans, simply Americans," Jindal said in a prepared remarks that he is scheduled to deliver next week.
Jindal, the first Indian-American Governor of any American state, is scheduled to address the Henry Jackson Society on Monday in London.
Releasing the prepared remarks of Jindal's speech, his office said the Louisiana Governor will call for immigrant assimilation to strengthen countries and protect freedom.
Speaking to NDTV, Bedi said, "I'm ready to fight Kejriwal directly in his constituency, I don't care if I lose."
Yesterday, BJPs top brass -- Amit Shah, Arun Jaitley and Dr Harsh Vardhan -- inducted Bedi at the party headquarters confirming that she would contest the elections.
The BJP chief welcomed Bedi to the party and said she would
strengthen its Delhi unit. "I extend my heartiest wishes to Kiran Bediji
for joining the BJP. Her presence will strengthen our Delhi unit. She
will definitely contest from the BJP's side, but it is the prerogative
of the parliamentary board to decide who will be CM candidate.
Though no announcement has been made on the seat that Bedi will
contest, rumour mills are abuzz that she may be pitted against Aam Aadmi
Partys Arvind Kejriwal as BJPs candidate for the top job.
And that comment is often followed up by the question: Why dont we see Christian, Buddhist, or Jewish terrorists?
Dera chief's 'Messenger of God' WILL release today
18 armymen arrested for Nashik police station attack
When PM Modi impressed Shashi Tharoor
Kiran Bedi joins BJP, likely to be pitted against Kejriwal
Militant who ordered tribal massacre in Assam held
Sunanda case: More to be quizzed in next 2 days, says police
It's 0.25%! Why the RBI cut the repo rate
In Case You Missed: Thursday's Commentary