And more tweets hailing NDTV's silent protest.

@tavleen_singh: Well done NDTV for protesting so meaningfully against the ban on India's Daughter: a blank hour to register censorship.

@gsurya: Brilliant silent Gandhian protest by @ndtv on ban on #IndiasDaughter.. directly taken on low IQ Sanghis & BJP Govt of @narendramodi!! Kudos.


@Sonia__Singh: Heart warming gesture & protest by @ndtv on screen for an hour at documentary telecast time #IndiasDaughter.


@Vivekjkulkarni:  You deserve salute for this @ndtv @ndtvindia ! Best way to protest ! Hope better sense will prevail.

NDTV which were to the play documentary India's Daughter at 9 pm on the occasion of International Women's Day has decided to go silent. The channel has stopped all its shows for now.

Tweets have already started coming in:

@yogital: At the time they were to air banned docu 'India's daughter' @ndtv plays this in silent protest. Brilliant!

‏@brownbrumby: wow @ndtv giving a powerful message on documentary ban.


@kayezad: @ndtv seems to be silently protesting against the government's ban order on airing 'India's Daughter'. And rightly so.

@novufreedom: NDTV protests against ban on IndiasDaughters documentary. NDTV screens to remain blank but with a message. #revokeban

Swine flu deaths continued unabated as 51 more people died of the virus raising the toll to 1,370 while the number of affected crossed the 25,000 mark today.   

According to data collated by the Union health ministry,the highest number of 322 deaths were in Gujarat where 5,521 people have been affected by the deadly virus. Rajasthan has reported 321 deaths while 5949 people have been affected in the state.   

The number of affected people across the country has mounted to 25,190.    With Delhi receiving rains in the past few days, health officials fear the virus may only spread more as high temperatures are deterrent to it.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today praised Saina Nehwal after the ace Indian female shuttler suffered a heartbreaking defeat in the final of the All England badminton championships, saying the country is proud of her for creating history by reaching the summit clash.

"Well played @NSaina! We are very proud of you. You created history by reaching the finals. Keep up the spirit," Modi wrote in his Twitter page.

Olympic bronze medallist Saina quest for becoming the first Indian woman to win the most prestigious All England badminton championship ended in agony after she lost to Spain's Carolina Marin in the summit clash in Birmingham today. The World No 3 Indian let go of a huge opportunity to script history as she squandered an opening game lead to go down 21-16 14-21 7-21 to the reigning world champion in the women's singles final that lasted for little over an hour.

More than 300 "dangerous" British jihadists have now returned home after fighting with the Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, a leaked UK home office document has said, advocating stringent measures to help stem the tide of Islamic extremism in the country.

The home office's new counter-extremism report, pegs the number of British jihadists fighting alongside IS militants close to 700, around half of whom have now returned home, posing a major security challenge to UK.

About 320 "dangerous" jihadists have now returned to the UK after fighting with IS, the leaked document, seen by the Telegraph, said. The new counter-extremism strategy involves monitoring Sharia courts and calls for a ban on radicals working unsupervised with children over fears the young could be brainwashed.

The home ministry has asked for a report from the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-government in Jammu and Kashmir on the release of Hurriyat hardliner Masarat Alam.

Strains showed up today in the week-old PDP-BJP coalition government over the release, with the saffron party slamming the "unilateral" decision and warning that such things would not be tolerated.     

The BJP said the decision was not a part of Common Minimum Programme on the basis of which the alliance government is being run in Jammu and Kashmir but the PDP differed, insisting that it is in tune with the CMP.    

State BJP chief and MP Jugal Kishore Sharma said his party was not even consulted before the decision was taken. Senior state BJP leaders met today to discuss theissue, he said, adding his party will convey its "displeasure"to PDP leadership and ask it to follow the "coalition dharma".    

The BJP has taken "very seriously" the "unilateral" decision of Sayeed and the party is"deeply hurt", he said about the release of the hardlineseparatist leader which has kicked up a major controversy. He said the CM did not take its coalition partner BJP intoconfidence before taking the decision to release Alam.   

NDTV reports:  The CPM has raised a question ahead of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Monday, at her own initiative.

On the eve of her first ever planned meeting with him, the CPM is asking if Ms Banerjee is planning a 'ghar wapasi'.

Md Salim, MP, asked at a rally in Kolkata, "Is this a drama? BJP is saying ghar wapsi. Trinamool from its birth was with the BJP. Didi is now going for 'ghar wapasi'."

India's Saina Nehwal loses to world champion Carolina Marin in All-England Badminton Open final at Birminghamtoday. Sania loses 21-16, 14-21, and 7-21 to the Spanish player.  

Carolina Marin became the first Spaniard to win the All-England title.
Marin adds this to the World title she won in August. She also becomes the first left-hander in 20 years to win the championship.

Scotland Yard has admitted that they could have handled better the case of the three runaway schoolgirls, believed to have joined Islamic State extremists in Syria,after the teenage girls' families criticised the police for not passing on vital information to them.   

The girls' families say the Metropolitan Police did not tell them that a friend of the girls was already in Syria. The families said they might have been able to intervene if they had known one of the girls' friends was already in Syria and police had spoken to the trio about it.   

Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, both 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16 -- who left their London homes last month -- were given a letter by the police for their parents, but the girls never passed on the letters to their families.  

The force admitted it could have given letters about the case directly to the parents rather than via the girls. A spokesperson for the Met Police said yesterday, "We now understand that these letters were not passed on in every case. With the benefit of hindsight, we acknowledge that the letters could have been delivered direct to the parents."   

"All the teenagers were all being co-operative, they were all being treated as potential witnesses and there was nothing whatsoever to indicate that they themselves were planning to travel to Syria," police said.

A host of political leaders and other prominent personalities, including Congress President Sonia Gandhi and BJP veteran L K Advani attended the last rites of distinguished editor and commentator Vinod Mehta in Delhi this evening.    

The last rites took place at Lodhi Road crematorium with his elder brother Major Gen (retd) Ashok Mehta lighting the funeral pyre.

Besides Gandhi and Advani, those who attended the last rites included Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit and CPI leader D Raja.

A 23-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped in a moving car after she was abducted by unidentified youths from the posh Raj Guru Nagar locality in Ludhiana, Punjab police said today.   

Commissioner of Police Promod Ban said the incident occurred last night when the girl, who is staying as a paying guest in the locality, was returning home after seeing off a female friend who also stays as a PG near her place.   

While she was returning, a car stopped near her and the occupants forced her inside the car, he added. The victim, who is said to be working at a hotel, told police that there were three persons in the car and two of whom raped her inside the moving car, Ban said. She was later dropped near the same locality, he added.

The commissioner said a case of abduction and gang-rape has been registered against the three unidentified persons and footage from the CCTV camera installed in the locality are being checked.

President Pranab Mukherjee today said women's empowerment, their dignity and equality should not be made a "distant goal or fond aspiration" but should be bestowed on them as one of their "sacred" rights.

While awarding some select women achievers of the country on the occasion of International Women's Day at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Mukherjee said it was time for a "collective introspection" for changing those "societal perceptions" and attitudes that pose a hurdle in the development of women in the society and also vis-a-vis their status in country's economy.

"I take this opportunity to convey my heartfelt appreciation of the countless women who are the silent backbone of our economy...as professionals they are second to none in their achievements and their services as doctors and nurses, as space and nuclear scientists and in government offices and politics are invaluable in forging a path of progress and growth for our people."

"Therefore, it is only appropriate that we should remind ourselves that the empowerment of women and their equality, liberty and dignity are not a distant goal or fond aspiration of the women of our country. It is one of their sacred rights. It is not a privilege that they should seek," the president said.

Bollywood actor Aditya Pancholi was today arrested for allegedly assaulting and abusing a bouncer of a night club at a five-star hotel in suburban Juhu, police said.

However, the 50-year-old actor was later released on bail. Pancholi allegedly smashed the head of bouncer Mandar Patole, 29, with his mobile handset while he was being escorted out after he created ruckus and damaged the counter at the pub in the wee hours today.

According to police, the actor along with a friend reached the Trilogy pub in Hotel Sea Princess on Juhu Tara Road late last night. "At about 12.45 am, an allegedly inebriated Pancholi requested the DJ to play Hindi songs as, according to him, only English numbers were being played in the pub. When the DJ turned down his request, Pancholi had a tiff with him," Santacruz police station's senior inspector Padmakar Chavan told PTI.

The actor even damaged the club counter, police sources said.

India committed "international suicide" by banning a documentary on the December 16 Delhi gang rape from screening in the country, the British director behind the controversial film has said.   

Leslee Udwin, the director of 'India's Daughter' also said it was ironical that her purpose of "giving a gift of gratitude" to India has been misinterpreted as "pointing fingers" at the country.   

She said, "My whole purpose was to give a gift of gratitude to India, to actually praise India, to single India out as a country that was exemplary in its response to this rape, as a country where one could actually see change beginning. The supreme irony is that they are now accusing me of having wanted to point fingers at India, defame India, and it is they who have committed international suicide by banning this film."

Nearly 50,000 Twitter accounts are being run by supporters of the dreaded Islamic State terror group, a study by a prominent US think tank has said, a worrying indicator of the outfit's reach on social media.   

Despite repeated attempts by Twitter to thwart the Islamic State's threats, propaganda and recruiting by suspending accounts linked to the group, sympathisers have maintained thousands of active accounts on the social network, the study said.

The users include a disciplined core group that sends messages frequently and understands how to maximise impact.

"Jihadists will exploit any kind of technology that will work to their advantage," said J M Berger, an expert on online extremism who was the lead author of the study, which was published by the Washington-based Brookings Institution and financed by Google Ideas.

But the Islamic State, he said, "is much more successful than other groups".  The release of the study came as Twitter, the San Francisco-based social media giant with more than 288 million active users worldwide, has moved more aggressively to suspend accounts linked to the Islamic State, The New York Times reported.

Just in: The BJP has registered a protest with Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed over release of Hurriyat hardliner Masarat Alam. State BJP chief and MP Jugal Kishore Sharma said his party was not even consulted before the decision was taken.

"This step does not have the consent of the BJP. Nor was the BJP consulted before taking such a decision," he told reporters in Jammu amid widespread criticism of the decision to release the separatist leader who was responsible for fanning trouble in 2010 in which over 100 people died in Kashmir.  

A 41-year-old Indian IT consultant was brutally stabbed to death in Australia, just 300m from her home, police said today as they launched a probe into the horrific attack.

Prabha Arun Kumar was on the phone to a member of her family when the "horrific" attack happened yesterday in Westmead, a suburb in Sydney. Kumar told the relative, "I think I've been stabbed" in the lane way that runs through the park close to her Westmead home. The mother of one was found stabbed in Parramatta Park last night.

The police described it as a "horrific attack". She was found by a man lying in a large pool of blood.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will lead JD-U leaders and workers while observing a 24-hour fast in the state on March 14 protesting against the land acquisition bill and other policies of the NDA government at the Centre.

The JD-U has decided to observe 24-hour fast on March 14 next to protest against the NDA government's land acquisition bill and other policies having wider ramification for the country and its people, party's state unit president Bashistha Narayan Singh told reporters.

The party functionaries will observe the fast at the party office in Patna, he said. Simultaneously, party workers will observe fast at the district and block levels on the same day to apprise the people about the pitfalls of the land acquisition bill, Singh said.

The JD-U will also formulate a host of agitational programmes in future to sustain its campaign against the NDA government on a host of issues affecting the people, he said.

RIP Vinod Mehta, says Twitterati. The micro-blogging website was flooded with condolences for the veteran journalist.

Shah Rukh Khan: Always loved hearing & reading Vinod Mehtas view on everything. Informative crisp & upfront. May his soul rest in peace.

Shashi Tharoor: ‏Can't believe someone as lively,frank,opinionated &larger-than-life as VinodMehta has passed away. His trenchant writing will be much missed

Sreenivasan Jain: V sad to hear of the death of Vinod Mehta. He was an original.

Days after he was dropped from AAP's political affairs ommittee, Yogendra Yadav today said he wants an end to the infighting in the party even as he asked workers not to lose faith in the party and its idea and focus on eradicating corruption.

"A lot of things have happened in the last few days...I have requested all party workers that whatever happens, do not lose faith and hope in the party and its idea," he told reporters in Panchkula, Haryana.

"Everybody is working for the party...infighting and similar other words were used in the last 5-7 days. Party workers have come with a lot of hope and expectations, they do not want it should go on further and I also do not want it to go on further," he said.

"I have also told party men no more questions and answers now. It is enough. Now work is to be done. We have not come here to fight with each other, we are here to remove corruption," he said.

An interim report into Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, published on the first anniversary of its disappearance, has given no new clues as to what happened to the plane.

An underwater locator beacon battery had expired a year before the plane disappeared, although it is unclear whether this impacted the search, the report reveals.

The report said that there was no evidence to suggest the battery was replaced and that while such a battery can operate past its expiry date, "it is not guaranteed that it will work or that it would meet the 30-day minimum requirement."

The battery on the plane's other so-called black box, the cockpit voice recorder, was replaced as scheduled and remained within its expiry date, the report said.

Investigators have found no indications of unusual behaviour among the pilots and cabin crew before the flight took off.

The airliner was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it vanished.

Malaysia and Australia say they remain committed to finding the missing plane.

Read the report here

Taking on social networking giant Facebook's ambitious 'free Internet' plans, telecom major Bharti Airtel chief Sunil Mittal has said the companies should do 'philanthropy' if they stop charging for mobile internet.

Facebook has launched an 'internet.org' initiative under which users can access internet free of charge for select websites if they come through a partner telecom operator.

Incidentally, Airtel Africa is one such partner for Facebook, while rival Reliance Communications has partnered Facebook in India for this initiative, which is based on assumption that bringing more people to the internet fold by offering them free service initially is good for the industry.

 The Prime Minister's Office has sought the law ministry's opinion on whether the Centre could circulate the laws on cow slaughter as enacted by some states, including Gujarat, as model bill among other states for their consideration for similar legislations there.   

In a letter to the legal arm of the government, the PMO has referred to a similar provision in the Constitution that provides prohibition of slaughter of cows and milch animals.   

Article 48 of the Constitution states that "the State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle."   

The letter, sent recently, asked the law ministry to"examine and advice" whether the Acts enacted by few states can be circulated as model bill to other states so that they can "exercise their choice of consideration to introduce similar enactments". 

In a passionate speech about racial progress in America, President Barack Obama told thousands of people who gathered in Selma, Alabama to commemorate the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" that "our march is not yet finished. But we are getting closer."

Obama emphasised that a day of commemoration is not enough to repay the debt paid by the marchers who were brutally beaten 50 years ago as they demonstrated for voting rights, reports CNN.

"If Selma taught us anything, it's that our work is never done," the president said near Edmund Pettus Bridge, where the confrontation between authorities and marchers was captured in film and photographs that jolted the nation. 

Internet and SMS services have been suspended acorss Nagaland till 6 pm tomorrow, even as protests mount against the killing of a rape-accused by a mob in Dimapur, reports NDTV.  

At least eighteen persons have been arrested in connection with the lynching incident in Dimapur even as protests against the killing continued to rock many parts of Assam today.

Police said the arrests were made after going through the mobile video clippings of the incident. Protests against the lynching were reported from different parts of Assam, including Karimganj, and a strict vigil was being maintained to prevent any untoward incident.

The body of rape accused Syed Farid Khan was taken to his home town of Karimganj in Assam yesterday after it was handed over by Nagaland authorities. Khan had been arrested on charge of raping a woman in Dimapur on February 24 and remanded to judicial custody in the Dimapur Central Jail the next day.

Jammu and Kashmir unit of the BJP's youth wing today held a protest in Jammu against the release of top Hurriyat hardliner Masarat Alam.

"The protest was led by the state general secretary of the BJP youth wing and I was also part of it," senior BJP leader Yudhvir Sethi said. Terming Masarat Alam as anti-national who would further fuel militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, the protesters demanded his immediate arrest.

"We will never tolerate the release of an anti-national leader who is a threat to the national security," a protester said.

Two days after a rape accused was dragged out of a jail by a mob of over 5,000 people, lynched, and his body dragged for seven kilometres, the alleged rape survivor has spoken out, accusing the lynched man of giving her Rs 5000 to not narrate the incident to anyone.

"The accused person was my neighbour... It was only after the incident... he told me, he gave me the money to keep silent...I took the money and gave it at the police station," the woman told NDTV.

Read the report here

Just in: Editorial chairman of Outlook magazine Vinod Mehta passes away.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweets: Frank & direct in his opinions, Vinod Mehta will be remembered as a fine journalist & writer. Condolences to his family on his demise.   

Twitter is followed with condolence messages for the veteran journalist:

@virsanghvi: Mourning Vinod Mehta the last of an old guard of Bombay journos who made the shift to Delhi but lost none of his irreverence or decency.

@@BDUTT: May you rest in peace Vinod Mehta. God Bless

China today said the border dispute with India has been "contained" and the Indian elephant and Chinese dragon should "do more" to strengthen the bilateral cooperation to facilitate its settlement.   

Addressing his annual press conference on the sidelines of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said a warm welcome awaited Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he makes his first visit to Chinalater this year.   

"Last September, President Xi Jinping made an historic visit to India. Picture of the two leaders working at a spinning wheel in Gujarat, the home state of the prime minister, has spread far and wide in China," Wang said in response to a question from PTI about the India-China relations at a nationally-televised crowded press conference.   

"Chinese people believe in reciprocating the courtesy of others. I am sure when Prime Minister Modi visits China later this year, he will be warmly welcomed by the Chinese government and people," he said.   

Terming the "China-India boundary question, a legacy of history," Wang said, "We have worked on it for many years and made some progress in the boundary negotiations. The dispute has been contained. At the moment, the boundary negotiations is in the process of building up small positive developments. It is like climbing a mountain and the going is tough because we are on the way up."

Bollywood actor Aditya Pancholi was arrested after he allegedly assaulted one of the bouncers of a night club in suburban Juhu in the wee hours today.

According to the Santacruz police, Pancholi, who was allegedly under the influence of alcohol, was annoyed at a disc jockey at a Juhu-Tara Road night club in Juhu, after he did not play the songs he had requested.

The actor got into a heated argument with the disc jockey and abused him at about 1 am after which bouncers at the night club intervened. The 50-year-old actor then allegedly assaulted one of the bouncers, leaving him injured.

Rumblings within the Aam Aadmi Party took a new turn when AAP leader Mayank Gandhi threatened to quit the party, accusing a "small group of party decision-makers" in Delhi of targeting him for decrying removal of Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from the party's political affairs committee.

He said that a concerted effort was being made on social media to portray him as "anti-party" and "anti-AK" (Arvind Kejriwal).

Gandhi claimed similar attempts were made to "humiliate" and oust Yadav and Bhushan from the party but they overturned that plan by not quitting.

"A price may have to be paid. A small group of party decision-makers in Delhi have already removed me from the informal BBM group. Attacks have begun against me from Ashish Khetan and others," he wrote in a blog defying a "gag order" imposed by the party.

The comments were made in a fresh blog titled '2nd note to volunteers-again from the heart' by the AAP leader who had abstained from voting in the national executive meeting held on Wednesday.

Suspected Boko Haram bombers killed at least 54 people and wounded 143 in a series of bloody suicide attacks Saturday in Maiduguri, Nigeria.

Kerala Assembly Speaker and former two-time minister in the A K Antony cabinet, G Karthikeyan passed away following multi-organ failure at a hospital in Bengaluru this morning.

Bumpy ride ahead for Modi govt in Parliament
CBI files charge sheet in Kerala RSS activist murder case
Separatist leader Masrath Alam freed from J-K prison
RSS mouthpiece wants BJP to ask Mufti if he is an Indian
Pakistan arrests 45 Indian fishermen
Bangladesh PM Shiekh Hasina narrowly escapes bomb blast