Kolkata: Opposition parties in West Bengal on Friday demanded deployment of central paramilitary forces in an all-party meeting convened by the State Election Commission to ensure proper, free and fair panchayat elections. "We need adequate protection for candidates and the voters though every state of the polls - filing of nomination, campaigning, polling day as also counting. The ground situation is not conducive for that. In various local elections across...
04:47 AM, May 18, 2013
New Delhi: The BJP on Friday took exception to CBI director Ranjit Sinha's remarks that former minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has a strong defence in the case of alleged bribery involving his nephew. BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that Sinha's remarks were "very unfortunate". "The matter is sub judice and the investigative agency is saying that there may not be concrete evidence," Naqvi told IANS. "The matter should...
04:40 AM, May 18, 2013
Chandigarh: In the wake of alleged political violence in the state, Punjab Congress on Friday demanded the resignation of deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal saying, he was the main architect behind "political murders and growth of mafias". "Sukhbir is a total failure as state's home minister and he has no right to continue in power. "Punjab is heading to a state of total anarchy as no rule of law...
03:50 AM, May 18, 2013
New Delhi: Haryana on Friday agreed to release raw water from its quota in Yamuna to Delhi which is reeling under shortage of water due to a breach in the upper Ganga canal in Uttar Pradesh. Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda agreed to provide Delhi around 240 cusecs of raw water from its share in Yamuna following a request by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. Areas in East and South...
02:25 AM, May 18, 2013
New Delhi: Delhi BJP on Friday took to streets to protest against scarcity of water in various parts of the city during summer and blamed poor water management by Congress government for the situation. BJP activists led by Delhi unit chief Vijay Goel held a demonstration near ITO with police using water cannons and lathicharge to disperse them. "The crisis is so acute and the common people are in such...
01:33 AM, May 18, 2013
New Delhi: Two officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), including one reportedly investigating the coal scam, were arrested in Delhi while taking a bribe of Rs 7 lakh for settling down a land dispute, an officer said on Friday. Superintendent of Police Vivek Dutt and Inspector Rajesh Karnatak were arrested by the internal vigilance unit of CBI from Lodhi Colony area in south Delhi. "Dutt was taking bribe...
12:12 AM, May 18, 2013
Ghaziabad: Recording his statement in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case, accused and Aarushi's father Rajesh Talwar Friday answered questions raised by the court from the evidence of the witnesses. To the about 180 questions asked, Talwar either denied the allegations or alleged the prosecution was trying to influence the witnesses, deviating from original statements recorded under section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Asked by the court whether he agreed over...
11:37 PM, May 17, 2013
Paris: Thieves ripped a safe from the wall of a hotel room near the Cannes Film Festival and made off with around $1 million worth of jewellery, in a brazen late-night burglary just hours after the screening of a film about break-ins at the homes of Hollywood celebrities, French officials said Friday. The apparently well-planned robbery at the Novotel hotel took place in the room of a representative of Chopard,...
11:24 PM, May 17, 2013
Bhubaneswar: With investors across Odisha demanding action against the chit fund companies which duped them of crores of rupees, opposition BJP and Congress on Friday respectively demanded judicial probe and CBI investigation into the matter. "As one chief of an accused chit fund company has said that some ministers and MLAs are hand-in-glove with him to cheat people, the government must reveal their names and announce a judicial probe into...
11:01 PM, May 17, 2013
New Delhi: A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) official, who is also the Chief Investigating Officer probing the coal block allocation scam, was caught taking a bribe of Rs 15 lakh on Friday. The CBI Internal Intelligence Unit nabbed Vivek Dutt in an operation that was personally supervised by the agency's director Ranjit Sinha. However, CBI sources said the bribe is not related to the coal scam. Rs 15 lakh...
10:08 PM, May 17, 2013
New Delhi: With the 2G spectrum issue getting caught in logjam in the JPC, the BJP on Friday sought to bring the matter to the forefront of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee saying the matter is pending and should be disposed of. The demand to settle the pending issue came at the first meeting of the newly-constituted PAC. BJP member Prakash Javadekar raised the issue of PAC's draft report on 2G...
09:35 PM, May 17, 2013
New Delhi: Time is appropriate to "reactivate" the GoM on spectrum vacation that could free over 122 Mhz of radiowaves as DoT has almost completed alternate communication network for defence forces, Sam Pitroda, Adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has said. "With the anticipated completion of the terrestrial network for defence services undertaken by DoT...there are fresh possibilities for vacation of more spectrum by the defence services. In addition, digitisation...
08:55 PM, May 17, 2013
Chennai: DMK leader MK Stalin on Friday surrendered his illegally-imported Hummer to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Chennai. Sources said Stalin's son Udayanidhi came to the Chennai office of the agency and handed over Sports Utility Vehicle Hummer which was imported in 2007 and registered in his name. They said the car was one of the vehicles which were allegedly imported by Hyderabad businessman Alex C Joseph evading...
08:49 PM, May 17, 2013
From July, more than 300 essential medicines will cost 20 to 25 per cent less, as the new national pricing policy comes into effect. How will this affect us and why are some calling it an eyewash? ...
08:46 PM, May 17, 2013
Jammu: The BJP on Friday accused the ruling Congress of "misusing" CBI against its rival parties and said that the case filed against Leader of Opposition in Rajasthan Assembly Gulab Chand Kataria in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case was "politically motivated". "If people will leave the public life considering the CBI charge sheet is true, then nobody apart from Congress will survive. Neither DMK nor SP (Samajwadi Party) or BSP...
07:52 PM, May 17, 2013
New Delhi: Girls have once again outperformed boys in this year's ICSE Class-X and ISC Class-XII examinations the results for which were declared on Friday. In all, 98.78 per cent of girls and 97.73 per cent of boys passed the Indian Certificate for Secondary Education (ICSE) exam, while 96.66 per cent of girls and 93.91 per cent of boys passed the Indian School Certificate (ISC) examination. Anika Aggarwal, Simran Khanuja...
07:47 PM, May 17, 2013
New Delhi: Against the backdrop of recent chit fund controversy in West Bengal, a Parliamentary committee on Friday slammed such schemes with demands for putting in place a single regulator to oversee their functioning or scrapping them altogether. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance closely scrutinised the functioning of such schemes which recently led to a series of suicides in West Bengal. Senior officials from RBI, CBDT, SEBI, Corporate Affairs...
07:40 PM, May 17, 2013
Jammu: BJP on Friday said the Congress-led UPA should declare its Prime Ministerial candidate first and whether Rahul Gandhi is a stakeholder for the top job or not. While insisting that BJP Parliamentary Board will take a decision regarding its PM candidate at an appropriate time BJP national general secretary and former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah said, since UPA was in power, it should first take a decision in...
07:28 PM, May 17, 2013
Rome: Serena Williams is on the longest winning streak of her career. The top-ranked American beat Carla Suarez Navarro 6-2, 6-0 Friday to reach the Italian Open semi-finals and extend her victory run to 22 matches. Williams had twice won 21 in a row before, although both of those streaks came a decade ago, in 2002 and 2003. In the other half of the draw, two-time defending champion Maria Sharapova...
06:43 PM, May 17, 2013
When it comes to the red carpet glamour, it's difficult to beat the Cannes Film Festival and our desi girls Vidya Balan, Sonam Kapoor and Freida Pinto made the heads turn at the ongoing 66th Cannes Film Festival. Let's take a look at who made the right cut at the French Riviera. ...
06:29 PM, May 17, 2013
