Days after a Maharashtra bill banning beef got Presidential assent, traders association of the red meat have come out strongly against the BJP-led state government, accusing it of "snatching" their livelihood for the sake of "vote bank politics". 

Notwithstanding various challenges, more number of women in the country do not think that travelling alone is unsafe though foreign destinations are still perceived to be safer, according to a survey. 

Unfazed by the controversy, the British filmmaker behind the BBC documentary on the Delhi gang-rape incident today accused the Indian government of trying to "muzzle free speech" by banning its telecast in India.

Leslee Udwin's 'Storyville: India's Daughter' was due to be aired in the UK on Sunday to coincide with International Women's Day but the telecast was brought forward in the wake of attempts by the Indian government to block its release worldwide.

It has led to threats of legal action from the home ministry but Udwin remains defiant. She has called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "deal with the unceremonious silencing of the film".

"This is the greatest fight of our times and I wanted to applaud the reaction of the Indian people to the crime with this film. But that has been turned around by this ban, which is an attempt to muzzle free speech," Udwin said.

Selfie sticks are becoming a must-have for tourists globally but Washington's top museums have banned the photography accessory.

"This is a preventive measure to protect visitors and objects, especially during crowded conditions," The Smithsonian, the largest research and museum group in the world, said in a statement.

The selfie stick allows you a longer reach when using a smartphone or camera to take a picture of yourself.

"We encourage museum visitors to take selfies and share their experiences and leave the selfie sticks in their bags," the Smithsonian said. The new rule is the first change in years to the Smithsonian's rules. "I can't think of any recent change that's been similar to this," spokesman John Gibbons said.

"I don't think 10 years ago that you could have predicted there would even be such a thing, let alone that it would be so popular."

The Smithsonian consists of 19 museums and galleries in the US capital, the National Zoological Park and nine research centres. It had more than 28 million visits last year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit former LTTE-stronghold Jaffna in Sri Lanka'sTamil-dominated north and address the Parliament in New Delhi during his three-day visit to the country next week.   

"The Indian prime minister will visit Jaffna and later address the Sri Lankan parliament too," Sri Lankan Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne told reporters today.   

Modi will be the first Indian prime minister and the second head of state after Britain's Premier David Cameron to visit Jaffna. Cameron visited Jaffna in November 2013.   

India has undertaken infrastructure development projectsincluding building of 50,000 homes in former conflict zones.    Modi will also be the fourth Indian Premier afterJawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Morarji Desai to addressthe Sri Lankan Parliament. The last time an Indian PrimeMinister addressed the Sri Lankan Parliament was in 1979 whenthen Premier Desai visited the country.

Govt serves legal notice to BBC over controversial documentary.

The BBC says it has no plans to air the film in areas under Indian jurisdiction and says the film is not derogatory to women.

BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi's noteworthy statement on the India's Daughter documentary.

Dear Ms Lekhi says she has contempt for the journalistic acumen [of filmmaker Leslee Udwin] and asks, "couldn't she find a rapist in London that she had to travel all way to India?"

Lekhi, who is the BJP spokesperson said on Wednesday when the documentary was being discussed in both houses of Parliament yesterday, said in the LS, "The sense of this House is signalling to the government to not let this documentary air. There should be proper investigation in this matter. This affects tourism... the police should take appropriate action... they should be charged under appropriate sections."

Udwin, 57, says, she began this film with a narrow basis -- why do men rape?

Speaking to the Guardian, she said, "I discovered that the disease is a lack of respect for gender. Its not just about a few rotten apples, its the barrel itself that is rotten."

Before Lekhi, her colleague Sushma Swaraj, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha in 2012, had called the Delhi gang rape victim a "zinda laash" in Parliament in 2012. The braveheart was still alive then and her statement was condemned by the girl's parents saying it fostered wrong notions about rape victims.


Read: Father of Delhi braveheart objects to 'India's Daughter'

Residents from north Texas to southern New England prepared for snow, sleet, and freezing rain as what many hoped would be the final storm of a brutal winter bore down on the East Coast.

In Washington, D.C., the federal government announced that it offices would be closed Thursday due to an expected snowfall of between 4 and 8 inches. The Office of Personnel Management says non-emergency personnel in and around Washington are granted excused absences for the day. Emergency employees and telework-ready employees are expected to work. 

Read more

Kohli lost his cool after the team's training session in Perth, ahead of the side's group league game against the West Indies at the WACA on Friday, and hurled expletives at a journalist.

Once he was done with his training and returning to the dressing room, India's premier batsman confronted a scribe of a national daily.

To the horror of that journalist, Kohli used filthy language for some time before storming off. Some members of the Indian team who were nearby, as also the journalist, were stunned, wondering what exactly had happened.

Once Kohli cooled down he told someone about an article that had appeared about him and his girlfriend Anushka Sharma in a national daily and said he thought it was that particular journalist who had written the story.

When he was told that he had mistaken this particular reporter for someone else, Kohli called one of the journalists and through him apologised for the incident.


So, what did Kohli say? Read the first-person account by the HT reporter.

Two days after Team India Vice Captain Virat Kohli's rant at a journalist, the BCCI has finally sat up and taken note.

This is what the BCCI says in a statement released today.

"The BCCI has been in touch with the Indian team management on this issue, and has advised that this kind of incident should not be repeated.

"The BCCI respects the role played by the media in covering and popularizing the game of cricket, and acknowledges the support of the media, in its mission to administer and promote the game of cricket in India.

"The player in question has been told to maintain the dignity of the Indian team at all times, and avoid any such behaviour in the future.

The BCCI would like to request the concerned parties to move on, and focus on the Indian cricket teams campaign in the ongoing ICC CWC ."

This doesn't border on the ridiculous, it is ridiculous.

A Gujarat MP writes to the National Security Advisor saying Delhi Press Club is a national security threat.

And here's the real reason why. Read

Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan today generated another controversy when he suggested to two senior Muslim BJP leaders to marry Muslim women.

"They have done Love Jihad (by marrying women belonging to Hindu community). Now they should marry a Muslim woman also. Four marriages are permitted in our religion. Sadhvi Prachi should say something on it also, as 40 children cannot be begotten by a single woman," Khan said yesterday.

He was responding to a question about BJP leaders Shahnawaz Khan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who have married Hindu women.

Reports coming in that YouTube has taken down BBC's 'India's Daughter' documentary after government request.

We tested it out and it can still be viewed, for now. 

If you haven't watched India's Daughter, may be you should, ASAP.

Government has asked YouTube to remove the controversial BBC documentary on Delhi gang rape, saying that it is a very sensitive matter.

Despite the Indian government's protest, BBC went ahead and released the documentary on Wednesday night in the UK and also uploaded it on the YouTube.

According to sources, the Communications and IT Ministry has told Youtube that the issue is very sensitive and it should review its position on the matter, and remove it from the website.

A YouTube spokesperson said: "While we believe that access to information is the foundation of a free society and that services like YouTube help people express themselves and share different points of view, we continue to remove content that is illegal or violates our community guidelines, once notified."

YouTube did not confirm whether it has received a notification from the government, which is required to remove the content from its site.

If you're in Mumbai and use the suburban rail network, especially the Western Railway, read this.

From March 8, the WR has cancelled three train services:

12.34 am Borivali-Andheri
4.28 am Bandra-Borivali
6.58 am Bandra-Bhayander

And a new train is being operated:

11.53 pm Andheri-Bhayander

The story behind one of the greatest nature pictures of all time. (The woodpecker in flight with a weasel riding on its back).

Read

In the midst of the unseemly controversy of the broadcast of the documentary India's Daughter, another daughter has been gang raped.

A teenager in Haryana who was allegedly gang-raped last month is believed to have committed suicide.

The young girl, who was from Gohana in Sonepat district, was deeply upset after the police converted the gang-rape case into rape and arrested only one of the accused, her family alleges.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was today admitted to a naturopathy institute on the city outskirts for a 10-day treatment of his persistent chronic cough problem and other ailments.

The AAP leader, who landed at the airport around noon accompanied by his parents, drove straight to Jindal Nature Cure Institute on Tumkuru Road on city outskirts.

Kejriwal would undergo naturopathy regimen that would include detoxification therapy for his cough and different types of "drainage treatments", a senior doctor said. His day begins at 5 am.

"He will undergo detoxification therapy, especially for his cough - different types of drainage treatments have to be given," Dr Babina Nandakumar, Chief Medical Officer at the Institute told reporters.

She said to control his disease once he gets back home, doctors will put him on a routine so that he gets used to it. "Once he is here for ten days, we will put him on a routine, so he gets used to this routine ... so whatever he learns here, he should try to inculcate (it) after getting back home if he really wants to control his disease," the CMO said. Nandakumar said Kejriwal needs to be examined in order to know his ailment.

"We have to examine him completely, and then whatever investigations have to be done that also has to be done. Only then, can I come to a conclusion what is he actually suffering from," she said.

S Gurumurthy's reasoning on the anti-protests in the aftermath of the Delhi gang rape. "If 100k is raped in UK its rape to population ratio it is 80 times India's. Too many rapes for protest. Protest is happens when rapes r few."

Gurumurthy is a journalist and a member of the think-tank of the Sangh Parivar.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who is on a leave of absence from Parliament to focus on party work following its wipeout in the Delhi polls, will be back in action early next week, said former Union Minister Kamal Nath in Nagpur.

Rahul's absence during the ongoing Budget session of Parliament evoked sharp criticism in the political circles. The Gandhi scion went on a sudden sabbatical just before the commencement of the Parliament session and also at a time when the AICC meet is around the corner.


We await the Rahul-isms.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav ushers in Holi.

Leslee Udwin's documentary needs to be aired and watched so that we do not continue to misdiagnose the roots of sexual violence and focus on fixing the wrong things. Read

"In fact audiences, in India at least, are unlikely to flinch at anything Udwin has to show them. If she thinks that she is holding up a mirror, she should know that Indians have been looking into it for some time now and are as eager for reform as those outside India demanding it on their behalf."


Journalist Sonia Faleiro reviews India's Daughter for the Guardian. Read

Every major English paper today -- ToI, HT, Express, Hindu, Telegraph -- has an edit, arguing against the banning of the documentary film India's Daughter, based on the December 16 gang rape.

Pioneer does not have an edit.

Meanwhile, not only did the BBC go ahead and air it on Wednesday night, the film is also now available on YouTube, watched and shared on social media, reports The Hoot.

Pioneer is edited by Chandan Mitra, who is a BJP national executive member.

Over 20 schoolgirls were attacked and two drivers of school buses injured after they resisted an alleged sexual harassment attempt by a group of bike-borne assailants in Muzaffarnagar, police said today.

The minors were returning home after their Board exam yesterday at Kamalpur centre when the eight bike-borne youths allegedly started passing lewid comments and interrupted their vehicles near Taprana village, SP Vijay Bhushan said.

The two drivers, Vedpal and Sanjay, of the buses in which the girls were travelling opposed the act which allegedly provoked the accused to use lathis on them, he said. The drivers were injured in the incident. Later, the accused allegedly started pelting stones on the vehicles, leaving one girl injured and vandalised the buses.

Meanwhile, the parents protested against the incident and registered a complaint in the matter, he said.

A case has been registered against the eight youths. Two of them, Rajesh (21) and Vijay (20), were arrested today, he said. The search is on to nab the remaining absconding accused, he said.

The Modi government does not want India's Daughter to be screened, but is it serious about the safety of women in India? Rashme Sehgal reports for Rediff.com. Read

2nd Lieutenant Nilofar Rahmani, 21, the 1st female pilot in the history of Afghanistan, has been selected to receive the International Women of Courage Award 2015.

The award is scheduled to be presented to her Michelle Obama. Eight other women from around the world are also selected for this award who have shown exceptional courage in promoting gender equality.


Chew on that, Tehreeq-e-Taliban!

"Arvind used to say that when they were coming out of the joint draft committee meeting of the Lokpal in 2011, Kapil Sibal used to ask them not to reveal anything to the outside world. Arvind used to answer that it was his primary duty to inform the nation about the proceedings, as he was not a leader but a representative of the people. Truth and transparency was all that he had.

"My presence in the National Executive is only as a representative of the volunteers. And I would be dishonest to accept the gag order. The volunteers cannot be removed from the equation; they are the source of the party. Rather than get information from selective leaks and stray statements, I have decided to give some factual details of the meeting in the public domain.

"Last night I was told that disciplinary action would be taken against me, if I revealed anything. So be it -- my first allegiance is to the higher truth. Here is an essence of the meeting with regards to removal of YY and PB, based on my understanding. I would request NE to release the minutes of the meeting."

Read the full text of AAP senior leader Mayank Gandhi's open letter to party volunteers.

Respect.

Congress spokesman Randip Surjewala appointed in-charge of party's Communication Department in place of Ajay Maken: Janardan Dwivedi.

A former teacher convicted of showing a movie including graphic sex and violence to a high school class was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

Sheila Kearns, a substitute teacher who was convicted in January of four felony counts, apologized in court, saying she hadn't watched the movie before showing it to her Spanish classes at Columbus' East High School in April 2013.

The movie, "The ABCs of Death," consists of 26 chapters, each depicting some form of grisly death and representing a letter of the alphabet, such as "E is for Exterminate," ''O is for Orgasm" and "T is for Toilet."

Sagarika Ghose: Is Mr Goswami utterly insane that this film insults Nirbhaya? Its a tribute! And a tribute to all young women daring to dream of a new life.

Former AAP spokesperson Yogendra Yadav speaks to the media after he and Prashant Bhushan were shunted out of the party's Political Affairs Committee last evening.

Yadav said he has been flooded with messages of solidarity, grief, and even condolences after he was asked to leave the PAC.

When a reporter asks him if he will stick to his decision to not resign, Yadav repeats what he tweeted yesterday: Na todenge, na chhodenge, sudhaarenge, khud bhi sudharenge.

In the 15-minute long Q&A with the reporters, Yadav said, "Don't write off AAP as yet. The idea of AAP is bigger than all of us. It can transform the country. Let us not lose faith. And that is what I told our volunteers too."

Largely silent on Arvind Kejriwal, Yadav who is seen as the conscience keeper of the party said it would be presumtious to believe that he or Prashant Bhushan were the only conscience keepers. "We have thousands of conscience keepers. Volunteers are the bedrock of this party. I have much greater faith in them than on the two of us. I have been getting messages from AAP supporters from all across the nation in last 12 hours," he said.

He said it did not matter if he was asked to leave the PAC. "If AAP blossoms and flowers and Prashant Bhushan and I can help in that, it will be the best."

Refusing to discuss what happened at the meeting yesterday, he said,  a decision had been taken that the proceedings of the meeting would be kpet private.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal chose to keep away from the meeting but his will prevailed at the Aam Aadmi party national executive meeting as the partys founder members Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav were voted out of its political affairs committee.

The national executive also rejected Kejriwals decision, conveyed before the meeting started, to resign as the partys national convenor.

The US ambassador to South Korea, Mark Lippert, was attacked by an armed assailant at a seminar in central Seoul where he was scheduled to give a lecture Thursday morning.

Television reports from Seoul showed Lippert, a former assistant secretary of defense and adviser to President Obama, bleeding from his head and hand at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, across the road from the US Embassy.

Police said he was attacked with a 10-inch knife. According to reports, the attacker yelled: "No war! The two Koreas should be unified.'

Read more

Salman Rushdie tweets his outrage: "Ironic that a documentary about someone named Nirbhaya should strike such fear into the world's greatest civilization."

Butchers slaughtering cows at the Deonar abattoir were ordered to shut shop by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Mumbai Police on Tuesday night after the Bombay High Court's directive.

"We came to know of the HC's directive on Tuesday and along with BMC, sealed shops of butchers slaughtering cows and other bovine animals at the Deonar abattoir on Tuesday night," said Sangramsingh Nishandar, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone VI, adding, "The Vishwa Hindu Parishad had approached us with a copy of the High Court's order after it was passed.

"He added, however, that butchers slaughtering other animals were not affected. "Beef slaughter has been completely stopped at the abattoir now,' he said.

"If policy-makers hold the lives of animals to be more significant than the welfare of a human populace, I can't believe that they're likely to do anything progressive for India."

Almost 17 years ago, Varsha Bhosle took on the anti-beef lobby on these pages. The day after Maharashtra banned the consumption and sale of beef, we repost Varsha's column, which is still being discussed on the Internet all these years later.

Read

It's the season for bans in India.

The censor board has said it will not allow the big-screen adaptation of erotic novel "Fifty Shades of Grey' to be shown in Indian cinemas, a decision most had anticipated.

The chief executive of the Central Board of Film Certification, Shravan Kumar, declined to say why the panel refused to approve the film adaptation, but said Universal Pictures, the Comcast Corp unit that released the film, could appeal the decision.

A Universal Pictures source familiar with the review process said the board had objected to some of the film's dialogue, even after the studio made voluntary edits to the film to tone down its sex scenes and removed all nudity. -- Reuters

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi of the BJP warns, "The channel that broadcast the Nirbhaya documentary will not be forgiven."

Unlikely that the BBC would be quaking in its shoes.

In fact, the BBC brought forward the telecast of the documentary 'India's Daughter,' from Sunday to last night. The documentary was broadcast in the UK and other countries.

The documentary by British filmmaker Leslee Udwin was to have aired in several countries, including India, on March 8 which is International Women's Day. But a statement from the BBC said given the "intense level of interest" they brought the transmission forward.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Wednesday that the government, which has procured a court order banning the screening of the film in India, would try and prevent its telecast in other countries too.

He said the Ministry of External Affairs and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had been asked to ensure the film was not broadcast on any platform anywhere in the world.

The remarks by one of the Delhi gangrape convict blaming the victim for the assault are "unspeakable", UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson has said, stressing the need for men to get involved in halting violence against women.

Ban's spokesperson Stephane Dujarric refused to further comment on the remarks made by Mukesh Singh, the driver of the bus in which the 23-year-old paramedical student was brutally gang-raped by six men on December 16, 2012.

"I'm not going to comment on the unspeakable comments that were made by the person accused of raping this girl, but I think the Secretary-General has spoken very clearly on the need to halt violence against women and on the need for men to get involved in halting violence against women and decrying it loud and clear every time it occurs," Dujarric told reporters.

In an interview for a BBC documentary on the rape of the girl, Singh appeared unrepentant for the abhorrent crime.

Amid wide public outrage over Singh's controversial remarks, the Indian government has banned the documentary on the 2012 gang rape 'India's Daughter'.

The benchmark BSE Sensex today jumped by 115 points in early trade today on back of buying by funds and retail investors.

The Sensex had lost 213 points in yesterday's trade after hitting a lifetime high of 30,024.74 following a surprise rate cut by RBI.

The 30-share index opened 56 points higher at 29436.77, and rose further to hit an early morning high of 29496.60 points.

A number of sectoral indices, led by healthcare, FMCG, consumer durables, realty, oil & gas and power, were trading in positive zone with gains up to 1.49 per cent.

Delhi: High Court upholds lower court's judgment on Om Prakash Chautala in JBT scam.

Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal has left for Bengaluru to visit a naturopathy centre. The Delhi CM will take leave for 10 days and rest at the centre after doctors advised him medical rest. According to reports, Kejriwal's health had worsened in the last few days and his sugar levels had also risen. 

Court has upheld 10-year sentence for OP Chaulata and Ajay Chautala and for the rest it has come down to two years: DK Sharma (Advocate)

The Delhi high court upheld  the conviction of ex-Haryana CM O P Chautala, his son and 53 others in teachers recruitment scam. OP Chautala, his son Ajay Chautala and eight others had been awarded 10 years jail term for illegally recruiting 3,000 junior teachers in the year 2000.

The Indian government, according to sources, might take action against the BBC for airing India's Daughter, the documentary in which one of the convicts of the December 16 Delhi gang rape features, despite the ban.

Holi celebrations were disrupted at the Sindh University when around a dozen students marking the festival were allegedly roughed up by the varsity's private security guards with police having to be called in. Associate Professor Amar Sindhu, who heads the philosophy department said that a couple of boys, one of whom had had his shirt torn, came to her complaining about how they had been roughed up. 

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has hinted that the search for missing flight MH370 may be scaled back. But, speaking to MPs and passengers' relatives ahead of the anniversary of the disappearance, Abbott said he hoped the plane would be found. 

On March 3, the Delhi police registered a First Information Report against filmmaker Leslee Udwin for her documentary India's Daughter on rape in the country, and on March 4, following the night of news shows railing against the documentary, a Delhi court stopped its broadcast, and the Union government warned television channels against airing it. 

India's Daughter, the controversial documentary about women's inequality, which also features an interview with Mukesh Singh, one of the convicts in the December 16 Delhi gang rape, is a mirror to society and reflects what many men thinks, says Nirbhaya's father. 

Today, some people feel a  sense of victimhood about Leslee Udwins documentary film Indias Daughter. The documentary was originally slated for release on March 8, International Womens Day, and is based on the December 16 2012 rape and murder of Nirbhaya, the protests against which rocked Delhi and India. 

US ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert is injured by an attacker in Seoul. The attack happened as Lippert, 42, was about to attend a breakfast meeting in the capital. Pictures later emerged showing the envoy bleeding from his face and left hand. He was cut by a razor blade. Lippert was taken to hospital. 

EXCLUSIVE! 'Whatever Mukesh is saying, many people say that in normal conversations'

BBC airs documentary in UK; delays India broadcast 

Yadav, Bhushan out of AAP's PAC; Kejriwal's resignation rejected

Lok Sabha passes coal, insurance bills; set to face hurdles in RS