06.01.200 To 10.01.2011
06.01.2011,Thursday

National

• CBI presses for withdrawal of case against Qattrocchi
• New Delhi: The court made the observations after a SC advocate opposed CBI''s plea for withdrawal of the case alleging that attempts were made to protect Quattrocchi.
• Will establish monitoring mechanism: Delhi Govt
• New Delhi: Filing an affidavit on a contempt petition filed by an NGO, the Department of Education, NCT Delhi said it would lay down regulatory mechanism in for pre-school education.
• Intense cold wave continues in UP; 11 more die
• Lucknow: While four persons each died in Deoria and Barabanki districts, two deaths were reported from Pratapgarh and one from Jaunpur due to cold since yesterday, official sources said here.
• Mamata accuses CPI(M) of killing her workers
• Kolkata: "But we are not panicked by such tactics of the CPI(M) who are now killing our local leaders," she said reacting to the killing of three party workers at Ketugram and Mangalkot in Burdwan district.
• BJP flogging a dead horse, says Sibal on Bofors
• New Delhi: "I personally think that it''s time the BJP realises that they are flogging a dead horse.
• BSP expels Mohammad Mukeem, son
• Lucknow: Mukeem, who had won Loksabha polls in 2004 and was defeated in 2009 general elections, was involved in anti-party activities, a party spokesman said here.
• Kalmadi's rightful place is in Tihar Jail: BJP
• New Delhi: "The CBI should stop playing host to Kalmadi... His rightful place is with Sanjay Mahindroo and T S Darbari (senior officials of Organising Committee) who are in jail," BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said.
• Pro-Telangana students give bandh call tomorrow
• Hyderabad: Tension prevailed at the Osmania University (OU) campus after the report was made public. Groups of students allegedly torched a bus and pelted stones, while police lobbed teargas shells to disperse protesters.
• Heavy security in Sopore to thwart Hurriyat rally
• Srinagar: Hardline faction of Hurriyat Conference headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani had asked people to take out a rally in the town, 55 kms from here in Baramulla district in the memory of those who lost their lives allegedly in BSF firing on this day in 1993.
• Division of AP will have 'serious implications'
• New Delhi: The Committee, which went into the demands for a separate Telangana state as well as keeping Andhra Pradesh united, said the matter of division of states should also be seen in the larger context.
• 'Evidence against Faheem weak and doubtful'
• Mumbai: Faheem has been falsely implicated in the case by police who had "planted" a map of Mumbai targets purportedly drawn by him in the pocket of slain terrorist Abu Ismael''s trouser, his lawyer R B Mokashi submitted.
• Budget session of UP Assembly from February 4
• Lucknow: A decision to this effect was taken by the state cabinet at its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mayawati today, he said.
• 'Govt not doing enough to tackle food inflation'
• New Delhi: "The common man is feeling harassed by the increase in prices of foodgrains. Last week, food inflation had increased to 14.44 per cent and now has crossed all limits by touching 18.32 per cent. BJP is concerned about the issue," party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said.
• Dengue: Govt to issue fresh guidelines for hospitals
• New Delhi: For better management of dengue cases this year, the Indian Council of Medical Research has decided to refine the guidelines for management of dengue patients, Dr V M Katoch, Director General of ICMR said.
• Cong protecting Bofors middlemen: BJP
• New Delhi: "The Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi are trying to protect those middlemen who were involved in the Bofors deal.
• Srikrishna committee report 'useless': Andhra BJP
• Hyderabad: "It was a useless report and entire work of the committee was a time-pass exercise", BJP state President G Kishan Reddy told reporters here.
• Reserve for blackbuck to be developed in Jodhpur
• Jaipur: The reserve would be developed on a 1538 bigha land at Gudha Vishnoiyan village, famous for blackbucks, so that the species of antelope could move around freely in a protected area.
• Omar asks separatists to hold talks with interlocutors
• Srinagar: "I am surprised that the separatists can talk to Parliamentarians, who have taken oath of Indian constitution and treat Kashmir as an integral part of the country. What is the harm in talking to the interlocutors, who have no boundaries or redlines," Omar said addressing a public rally at Pahalgam, 100 kms from here in south Kashmir''s Anantnag district.
• Balakrishnan should resign immediately: Joshi
• Varanasi: "A close relative of Balakrishnan has been found involved in alleged corrupt practices and doubts are also being raised about former CJI''s role in it," Joshi told reporters in Nadeshsar area of the city.
• Meghalaya CM briefs PC on ethnic violence
• Shillong: "Today I spoke to Chidambaram, briefed him about the situation and underlined the need for strengthening security forces. I have also written to Defence Minister A K Antony requesting him to comply with our request for deploying army," Sangma told reporters here.
• Nine of two families killed in Jharkhand
• Ranchi: Armed men butchered Suman Tirkey (40), Simon Tirkey (25), Manish (10), Tina Tirkey and Mary (60) with axes and sharp weapons at Taisera village at midnight last night, Sub-Divisional Police Officer, Madhusudhan told newsmen.
• Maoist flee after encounter with security forces
• Jhargram (WB): The joint security forces came under firing from the Maoists in the jungle near Didiha village, when they launched a search operation, a police official said.
• Citibank fraud: Police looking for missing iPad of Puri
• Gurgaon: Puri, Relationship Manager of Citibank and mastermind of the high-profile banking fraud, was reportedly using the latest electronic device to communicate with his clients, sources said.
• Delhi needs officer-oriented policing: Gupta
• New Delhi: The thinking among the top officials of the Delhi Police is that Delhi being the capital, the policing should be officer-oriented.
• CPI-M slams critics over KGB kin issue
• Thiruvananthapuram: Reacting to criticism made against the party by eminent jurist V R Krishna Iyer on the issue, the CPI-M state Secretariat said this was the result of "some misunderstanding" on the part of the former apex court judge.
• Haridwar mourns bus tragedy, Inquiry ordered
• Haridwar: Uttarakhand government ordered a magisterial inquiry into yesterday''s mishap while police arrested the bus driver Rakesh Kumar, who had jumped from the vehicle, in Raiwala area near here.
• People looking at PDP as an alternative : Mufti
• Jammu: "Omar government has miserably failed to translate its promises into reality, so the people of this state have been looking towards PDP to get their aspirations addressed", former Chief Minister and PDP Patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed told reporters here after Madan Lal Aggarwal, a prominent businessman of Jammu, joined the party.
• Rise in crimes in Delhi, police redraw strategy
• New Delhi: The number of crimes reported in the capital rose to 52,675 from the previous year''s 50,972, riding on an increase in cases of rape, molestation, robbery, snatching, motorvehicle theft and kidnapping.
• Elections to AMU students' union on Jan 19: VC
• Aligarh: An agreement between students and the university authorities on December 19 "clearly and categorically mentions that the elections would be held on the basis of Lyngdoh recommendations in letter and spirit," Azis told reporters here.
• Court to decide on CBI closure report tomorrow
• Ghaziabad: After taking cognizance of the report submitted by the CBI, the Court had on January three directed the Investigating Officer to bring case diary on January seven for examination.
• Police seek time to conclude probe against Geelani, Roy
• New Delhi: "The investigation is under progress and more time is required to conclude the same," police said in the status report filed before Metropolitan Magistrate Navita Kumari Bagha.
• Sri Lanka sends back 4 TN fishermen by flight
• Chennai: The fishermen hailing from Chennai had set sail for fishing on January 4 but went adrift due to strong currents, a state government release here said.
• Delhi registers slight dip in number of murders
• New Delhi: A huge 93 per cent of the murders were committed by first-timers. In 57 per cent of the cases, the murderers were in the age group of 25 years or below.
• Citibank fraud: Puri's police remand extended
• Gurgaon: Puri was arrested last week in connection with the Citibank fraud at a local branch here and was sent on police remand for a week.
• Balance tilting in favour of united AP: committee
• Hyderabad: "After considering all aspects, the Committee found the balance (was) tilting in favour of keeping the (Andhra Pradesh) state united, though some valid and strong reasons that had continued to cause discontent in Telangana region since its merger indicated that the demand for separation was also not entirely unjustified," the panel said in its prologue to the 505-page report that was publicised today, even as it came out with six options on the statehood issue.
• 'Andhra division not to solve backwardness problem'
• New Delhi: "We and other parties have given our views (on Telangana) repeatedly. Now we want the government to do what it wants to do. The stage of political parties giving their views is long over," CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters here.
• Aarushi's friends, family hold candlelight vigil
• New Delhi: Aarushi''s friends from her school - DPS Noida, friends of the Talwar family, members of the Indian Dental Association alongwith her parents Rajesh and Nupur lit candles in front of her portrait at Jantar Mantar and said the closure report submitted by the CBI in the double murder case should be opposed by all and it should be investigated further.
• 'Modernisation of artillery has been hampered'
• New Delhi: "There have been faults, some in uniform and some out of uniform. Now we are on track to ensure that this mismatch that has happened over a period of time is amended," Singh told reporters here.
• Crime Tracking Network System to be launched
• Bhopal: "CCTNS will be launched in October this year," Tripathi told reporters at the 13th All India Conference of Directors of Finger Print Bureaux which started here today.
• Srikrishna panel report directionless, says JD-U
• New Delhi: "This is a directionless report and has no significance.
• TRS rejects Justice Srikrishna panel report
• Hyderabad: Reacting to the Committee''s report made public earlier in the day, Telugu Desam Telangana Forum convenor Nagam Janardhana Reddy demanded that the Centre table a Bill in the Budget session of Parliament for creation of Telangana state irrespective of the recommendations of the panel.
• JD(U) insists on special state status for Bihar
• Patna: "Bihar doesn''t want a special package....it should be accorded a special state status," JD(U) spokesperson Sanjay Singh said in a press statement.
• Official abducted on Delhi-Dehradun highway, freed
• Muzaffarnagar: The incident occurred last night when Vishal, 35, was on his way to Dehradun from Delhi in a car.
• Naxal supporter Sudhir Dhawale arrested in Wardha
• Nagpur (Mah): A team of Gondia police and city unit of the ATS apprehended Sudhir Dhawale, in the neighbouring district, 80 kms from here, on Sunday, they said.
• Journalist held in MLA murder case in Bihar district
• Purnia: Keshari''s nephew Sudip Keshari lodged an FIR with the K-Hat police station here against Rupam Pathak, who was arrested soon after she stabbed the MLA to death, Navlesh Pathak, editor of an English weekly and an unknown person last night, DIG (Purnia range) Amit Kumar told PTI.
• Prohibitory orders clamped in Kupwara district
• Srinagar: "District Magistrate Kupwara M S Rather has imposed section 144 CRPC in the district which will remain effective for next 60 days from January 3," an official spokesman said.
• 'Cyclone risk mitigation scheme to be implemented'
• New Delhi: The first phase of the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project (NCRMP), which would be implemented at an estimated cost of Rs 1,496.71 crore, was approved at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here today.
• JK government spends Rs 487 crore under PMGSY
• Jammu: "Under the PMGSY programme in Jammu province, 420 schemes are sanctioned from Phase-I to VI at an estimated cost of Rs 1410.42 crore against which an expenditure of Rs 478.01 crore has been incurred," officials of the state''s Rural Development Department said today.
• Kerala artiste enters Guinness for dance marathon
• Thiruvananthapuram: Hemalatha set the mark, surpassing the record of Hyderabad- based Vettikotta Yadagiri, through her 123-hour performance which culminated in Thrissur on September 2010.
• 'Srikrishna committee rejected 3 options suggested by it'
• New Delhi: "The report has listed six options and for each option the committee has given pros and cons. The committee has also given its views. If you read the report carefully, you will find that the Committee itself has rejected the first three options and termed them as non-practicable. It has listed options 4,5 and 6 and also suggested the way forward," Chidambaram said.
• Locals allege police inaction after 5-yr-old murdered
• Chandigarh: Anti-riot vehicles were positioned and traffic on many roads, passing through the area in Sector 45 was diverted as crowd raised slogans against police demanding that an FIR be registered against policemen whose alleged negligence led to the mishandling of the case, police said.
• Property dealer shot dead at Ghaziabad in UP
• Ghaziabad: Santosh Mishra, a resident of Loni, was shot dead yesterday by the armed men, while his brother Premod was beaten up when he tried to save his brother, they said.
• Railways to shop at Hong Kong for security gadgets
• New Delhi: Northern Railway will purchase sophisticated security equipment, including CCTV cameras, baggage X-Ray machines and under vehicle scanning system (UVSS), worth Rs 25 crore to be installed at important stations, including New Delhi Railway Station, Nizamuddin Station and Old Delhi Station here.
• Bihar special plan fund doubled to Rs 2K cr for FY11
• New Delhi: Effectively, the increase in central allocation would mean that the NDA-ruled state can spend extra Rs 1,000 crore on power, roads and irrigation within the three months ending March 31, 2011.
• North-Easter tribals should unite: Vincent H Pala
• Itanagar: Participating in the annual ''Si-Donyi'' festival of the Tagin community, Pala said though the country has innumerable tribes, most of whom are peace-loving and believe in harmonious co-existence, but the tribes of the region have been fighting among themselves.
• 'Only Telangana with Hyderabad as capital acceptable'
• Hyderabad: "We are told that the Srikrishna Committee has given some options...We hope wisdom will prevail and Centre will take the right choice and live up to the promise it made to the people of Telangana on December 9, 2009. Other than Telangana, with Hyderabad as its capital, nothing else will be acceptable to us," TRS MLA and party chief K Chandrasekhar Rao''''s son K T Rama Rao told PTI.
• Haldar meets Rajkhowa; positive about taking talks ahead
• Guwahati: "The ULFA has expressed their willingness for unconditional talks. Yes, they have made a request that the outfit''s General Secretary Anup Chetia be brought back to the country so that he can participate in the peace talks but this is not a pre-condition," he added.
• CPI-M rejects charge of keeping mum on charges against KGB kin
• Thrissur: "The party has not discussed the issue. After the discussions we will spell out our stand," Kerala home minister and senior CPI-M leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan told reporters here, describing the allegations as "false propaganda" by adversaries against the party.
• Bifurcation of Andhra only acceptable option: Cong MLA
• New Delhi: "Of all the options given, only option five is acceptable to us which speaks of bifurcation of the state in Andhra and Telangana with Hyderabad as the capital of Telangana," Reddy, who represented the Congress in the meeting along with MP K S Rao, said.
• Dalit boy murder: Case against lover's kin registered
• Muzaffarnagar: Bobby, 25, a resident of Shahjuddi village was allegedly shot dead yesterday by brothers of his lover for sending the girl the card with the couple''s picture in it.
• FinMin cracks whip on IRS officers overstaying abroad
• New Delhi: The Ministry has asked all the Chief Commissioners of Income Tax (CCsIT) across the country to report as to how many such officers have gone on trainings and study programmes at universities and institutions abroad and what action has been taken against those who have not returned without furnishing proper reasons.
• Rajkhowa urges Centre to ensure Chetia's release
• Guwahati: Rajkhowa told reporters after his first interaction, since his release from jail, with Centre''s interlocutor P C Haldar at the Circuit House here that this "was just a request and not a precondition".
• Ancient idol stolen from a temple in Muzaffarnagar 
• Muzaffarnagar: Some unidentified persons broke open the doors of the temple last night and took the idol with them, Deputy Superintendent Alok Piryadarshi said, adding a police team rushed to the spot and started investigations into the case.
• Delhi-Kanpur train service restored after four hours
• New Delhi: Train services in the section were disrupted at 7:30 AM today as overhead wires broke after a high tension cable running above snapped and fell on it near Shikohabad Railway Station in Uttar Pradesh.
• JK govt to provide employment to 1L educated youth
• Srinagar: "As many as one lakh educated youths would be provided employment opportunities in the next three years," Minister for Medical Education R S Chib said while addressing a ''''public darbar'''' at north Kashmir''''s Baramulla district yesterday.
• Parties issue appeal for maintaining peace in Andhra
• New Delhi: The "joint appeal" issued after the meeting also said the parties have agreed to the suggestion of Home Minister P Chidamabaram that they will meet again later this month after discussing the report within their respective parties.
• No relief from freezing cold in Punjab and Haryana
• Chandigarh: Freezing cold gripped Narnaul in Haryana, which was the coldest place in the two states, recording a low of 0.5 degrees Celsius, down four notches, the MeT said here.
• Sushil Modi rules out CBI probe in MLA murder case
• Purnia (Bihar): "There is no possibility of the state government handing over an inquiry into the Keshari murder case to CBI at the moment," Modi, who was here to attend the funeral, told reporters yesterday.
• Left Front alleges Trinamool-Maoist nexus in Bengal
• New Delhi: "We met the Home Minister with a delegation of the Left Front and TDP and JD(S) to draw his attention to the fact that there is incontrovertible evidence of links between the Trinamool Congress and the Maoists," CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters after submitting a memorandum to Chidambaram.
• Wild elephant tramples old woman to death in Orissa
• Rourkela (Orissa): The pachyderm attacked the thatched house of Budhuni Majhi when she was sleeping alone at Kadamal under Lephripara police limit area, about 120 kms from here, last night.
• Kashmir continues to reel under cold, min rises in Leh
• Srinagar: There was a marginal improvement in the minimum temperature recorded at various places in Kashmir division during the preceding night but dry weather continued to cause problems for the residents of the region.
• Tensa temperature dips to zero degree Celsius; 1 dies
• Rourkela: A middle-aged unidentified man was found lying on the National Highway 215 near Kusumdihi under forest dominated Koida police station last night. He was taken to nearby hospital where doctor declared him dead, police said.
• Nine persons illed in Jharkhand in separate incidents
• Gumla (Jharkhand): A group of armed men raided Taisera village and hacked five persons to death last night and ran away, they said.
• Drug peddler with ISI links arrested in Uttar Pradesh
• Lucknow: Virendra Gupta, hailing from Maharajganj district, was arrested near Alambagh bus stand and 400 gram heroine and 1.8 kg opium were recovered from his possession, they said.
• Middle-aged man dies of severe cold in Jammu
• Jammu: The person, apparently middle-aged, died due to severe cold in the district and his body was recovered late last night, they said.
• Over 700 persons arrested during FDA drive in UP
• Lucknow: "Till December 31, 796 FIRs were lodged against 1,204 people of which 780 were arrested across the state during FDA drive launched on the directives of Chief Minister Mayawati," an official spokesman said here.
• Read Telangana report with open mind: PC to leaders
• New Delhi: Home Minister appealed parties to read recommendations of the Justice Srikrishna Committee on Telangana with an "open mind" and give "impartial consideration" to them.
• Encounter on between Maoists and security forces
• Jhargram (WB): After a landmine blast in Agruiboni area yesterday, the forces launched a search operation against the ultras last night, police said.
• Ambulance rams into truck in Jharkhand, three killed
• Dhanbad (Jharkhand): Chief excavation engineer of BCCL Kalyan Sarkar, doctor Deepak Kumar Kundu of Block-2 and another person Vinay died on the spot, they said.
• Maharashtra govt to initiate action against Tiwari
• Mumbai: "The state government will soon initiate appropriate action (against Tiwari)," Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said at Aurangabad yesterday, hours after the Maharashtra Governor rejected Tiwari''s request to go on leave from January 7- March 31.
• 5 Pak men apprehended near Jhaku coast in Gujarat
• Jamnagar (Guj): The incident took place last evening, about 36 nautical miles off the Jhaku coast, when the Coast Guard during a patrol, caught a Pakistani boat in the Indian territory, they said.
• P Chidambaram meets political leaders from Andhra
• New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, Congress leader Uttam Kumar Reddy, CPI-M state secretary B Raghavalu, PRP leader C Ramachandraiah were among those who are attending the meeting during which Chidambaram will hand over the Justice B N Srikrishna Committee report on the Telangana statehood demand.
• Delhi Police Sub-Inspector shoots himself dead
• New Delhi: Ajit Singh, posted at E-Block security lines near Krishna Menon Marg, died after firing at himself, they said adding, the reason for his taking such a step was yet to be ascertained.
• Kanpur-Delhi train services disrupted as wires snap
• New Delhi: According to a railway spokesperson, the services came to a halt since 7:30 AM as the overhead wires broke after a high tension cable running above snapped and fell on it.
• Another chilly day for Delhi, min temp at 5.3 degC
• New Delhi: The minimum temperature was recorded at 5.3 degree Celsius, a degree more than yesterday''s low of 4.2 degrees but still two degrees below normal for this time of the year.
• Drive against those creating false fertilisers shortage
• Lucknow: "A drive should be launched and stern action be taken against those creating artificial shortage of fertilisers and it should be ensured that farmers get seeds and urea as per their requirement," state agriculture Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui said.

International

• Taliban faction claims responsibility for killing Taseer
• Peshawar: "We claim responsibility for the killing. The Punjab Governor was our target and we have planned this programme and the man who killed him was from among us,"
• Four policemen killed in accident in China
• Beijing: The bus crashed into the back of the car at around 2:47 pm local time after its brakes failed on an expressway between Yangzhou City and Liyang City, Xinhua reported.
• Pakistan anti-corruption tribunal underway
• Doha: The hearing, being held behind closed doors at the Qatar Financial Centre, is scheduled to run until January 11, although lawyers have indicated a verdict may come earlier.
• Six killed in Pakistan's restive northwest
• Peshawar: The clashes erupted in Saifaldar town in Orakzai Agency, which borders Afghanistan. Three militants were injured in the fighting that continued till the evening, the sources said.
• WikiLeaks: Israel charged bribes for Gaza access
• Jerusalem: The June 14, 2006, cable, published today by Norway''s Aftenposten daily, says major American companies told US diplomats they were forced to pay hefty bribes to get goods into Gaza.
• Thais charge 2 Romanians over UK banking scam
• Bangkok: Danail Vint, 25, and Sergiu Virgil Roatis, 24, were arrested in Bangkok yesterday after Thai banks working with their European counterparts notified police of the fraud, Thailand''s Central Investigation Bureau said in a statement.
• At least 14 dead in west Ivory Coast ethnic clashes
• Abidjan: "Over the last more than three days, inter-ethnic violence has taken over Duekoue following the death of a woman during a robbery," the UN mission in Ivory Coast''s human rights spokesman Simon Munzu told journalists.
• Iran's foreign minister meets top Iraqi clerics
• Najaf (Iraq): "I came carrying a letter from the Iranian leadership to the religious authorities in Najaf," Ali Akbar Salehi told a news conference in the central Iraq Shiite shrine city.
• Japanese politician, 50 gives birth to first child
• Tokyo: Seiko Noda, a conservative lawmaker once hailed as Japan''s most likely first woman prime minister, had long spoken openly of her struggle with the treatment and in 2004 published the book "Watashi wa umitai" (I Want to Give Birth).
• Indonesia rock star faces jail over web sex tapes
• Bandung: Nazril Ariel, 29, surrendered to police on June 22 amid a national scandal over the explicit videos, which showed the popular singer having sex with two well-known female television celebrities.
• Crucial 17th run-off poll for new Nepal PM on Jan 12
• Kathmandu: The 17th prime ministerial run-off is likely to take place on January 12, Parliament sources said. The Speaker is likely to announce the date for prime ministerial polling on the first day of the Winter session, sources were quoted as saying by the Himalayan Times online.
• 10 Indians arrested in Sri Lanka
• Colombo: The immigration and emigration controller Chulananda Perera confirmed to the PTI the arrest of the Indians but refused to give further details as the investigations are still underway.
• Elements of PML-N may be involved in Taseer killing
• Lahore: PPP leaders in Punjab were not convinced Taseer''s killer''s confession that the assassination was an "act of faith." Some of them believe the murder was part of a plot to pit the PPP against religious forces.
• China elevates its missile force chief in PLA
• Beijing: Lieutenant General Wei Fenghe, 56, chief of staff of Second Artillery Corps, the PLA''s strategic missile force, has been named deputy chief of the general staff, China Central Television''s military channel reported, signifying the priority the Red Army is laying in building up its missile arsenal.
• Asia Bibi facing threat of suicide attack
• The "Moaviya group", a militant organisation plans to mount a suicide attack on Sheikhupura district jail, where 45-year-old Asia is being held, The Express Tribune quoted its sources as saying. An intelligence report issued last week has corroborated threat to her life.
• US to rush 1400 more marines to Afghanistan
• Washington: A decision to boost up US forces has been decided by the Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the marine battalion could start arriving on the ground as early as mid-January, Wall Street Journal reported.
• Pak singers condemn killing of Salmaan Taseer
• Singer-actor Ali Zafar, the star of the Bollywood film "Tere Bin Laden", described the killing as "tragic".
• US building a network to hit militants
• Washington: Run by the US Joint Special Operations Command, the new centre would be a significant step in streamlining targeting operations previously scattered among US and battlefields abroad and giving elite military officials closer access to Washington decision-makers and counter-terror experts, the officials said.
• Call for pardon for convicted Israeli ex-president
• Jerusalem: The former minister, Yossi Beilin, says Moshe Katsav''s public humiliation is enough of a punishment and would serve as a powerful deterrent to other officials. He reasons that it is not in the public interest to see a former symbol of the state behind bars.
• Peace process in Nepal still incomplete: UNSC told
• United Nations: In a briefing, Special UN Envoy for Nepal Karin Landgren told the UNSC that there has been little progress on the most critical issues of forming a new government and integrating 19,000 Maoist former rebels, and scant advances on a new constitution.
• US weighs replacing envoy to Libya
• Washington: The officials said yesterday that the envoy, veteran diplomat Gene Cretz, may be moved from his post in Tripoli over fears that his candid reporting of Gadhafi''s eccentricities may have compromised his ability to work with Libyan officials. Cretz has held the job for more than two years.
• S Korea, US lukewarm on North's call for talks
• Seoul: North Korea offered "unconditional" negotiations with the South yesterday, in its most conciliatory remarks since the nuclear-armed state sent tensions on the peninsula soaring in November by shelling a South Korean island.
• Doubts emerge over whether Qadri acted alone
• Several police officials have confirmed that Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the Elite Force personnel who gunned down Taseer on Tuesday, was removed from Rawalpindi Police''s Special Branch about 18 months ago after then regional police chief Nasir Khan Durrani described him as a "security threat".
• Japan to seek non-permanent UNSC seat for 2012-2013
• New York: Tokyo after having just completed a two-year term on the body at the end of last year has already unofficially notified some friendly countries about its intention to run in the next election of non-permanent members, set to be held this autumn, and is likely to announce the plan shortly, Kyodo news agency quoted government sources as saying.
• Republicans assume control; Boehner replaces Pelosi
• The Republicans trounced the Democrats in the recent Congressional polls, assuming a majority in the House and diminishing the Democrats'' lead in the Senate.
• Wing problem grounds Sydney-bound Qantas flight
• Melbourne: Flight QF430 took off from Melbourne Airport at 12.20pm but then was reverted back to Melbourne after a cockpit indicator showed a potential problem with one of the plane''s wingflaps, according to reports.
• India vows to strengthen legal framework for counter-terrorism
• United Nations: "Given its experience in the fight against menace of terrorism over more than two decades, India, during its chairmanship of the Counter Terrorism Committee (CTC), will work to further strengthen the international legal framework for counter-terrorism," India''s Permanent Mission to the United Nations said in a statement last evening.
• Malaysia steps up security along Johor waters
• Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency''s commander First Admiral Zulkifli Abu Bakar asked vessels plying the waters to place more men on duty during stops and report immediately to them if they spotted pirates.
• Sub freezing temp bring 5 Chinese provinces to standstill
• Beijing: The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs said icy weather and sleet have disrupted the lives of more than 3.83 million people in Jiangxi, Hunan, Chongqing, Sichuan and Guizhou regions since Saturday.
• Jackson's bodyguard breaks down while testifying
• Los Angeles: Alvarez struggled to hold back tears as he told a court in Los Angeles that Murray, who is facing charges of involuntary manslaughter of the ''Thriller'' hitmaker, instructed him to remove a bag full of bottles from the singer''s bedside and hide an intravenous (IV) bag from its stand, reported Los Angeles Times.
• United States diplomat attacked in Vietnam
• Hanoi (Vietnam): Radio Free Asia reported yesterday that Christian Marchant, a political officer at the Hanoi embassy, was attacked by police while trying to visit Vietnamese dissident and Catholic priest, Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly.
• Gibbs, public face of Obama presidency, to quit WH
• 39-year-old Gibbs, who is considered very close to Obama since his pre-election days, would leave the White House sometime in February, after the President delivers his annual State of the Union Address.
• Malaysia to seek help of IOM to revise its trafficking laws
• Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said his ministry would work with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to set up an international training academy in the island of Langkawi to address transborder issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling and money laundering.
• Malaysia says extremist trying to recruit from schools
• Expressing concern that students were being exposed to militant ideology, the nation''s Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the militant groups active in the country included Islamist extremist, Tamil and Sikh separatists.
• 24 hospitalised with lead poisoning in eastern China
• Beijing: The children, aged from nine months to 16 years, were taken in with moderate to severe lead poisoning with more than 250 microgrammes of lead per litre of blood, a medical officer said.
• Floods continue to hit normal life in Australia
• About 40 mines in Queensland have been affected by flooding and several have said they cannot meet their contracts, local media reported today.
• US school bans 'kirpan'; Sikh community concerned
• The move has troubled the small Sikh community in the township near Detroit, prompting them to launch a public awareness campaign to make people realise that ''kirpan'' is only a religious symbol that is completely non-threatening.
• Siberian tiger attacks and kills bus driver in China
• Beijing: The tiger pounced on driver Jin Shijun and dragged him into the forest after he got out to check on his bus, which was stuck in the snow at the world''s largest Siberian tiger breeding base in the northern province of Heilongjiang, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
• United States student shoots administrators, kills self
• Omaha (Nebraska): The gunman, who had attended the school for no more than two months, fled from the scene and fatally shot himself in his car about a mile (kilometre) away.
• 'Australians at odds with Gillard over US cables release' 
• Melbourne: Just one-quarter of voters agree with Gillard''s view that the diplomatic cables recently published by WikiLeaks should have remained secret, The Age today reported quoting the survey.
• Clinton, Yang talk global economy, regional conflicts
• The two countries vowed to work together on key global political and economic issues and also discussed the trade relations between the two sides.
• 'Turkish Airlines hijack attempt foiled by passengers'
• Istanbul: The would-be hijacker, named as Yasar Cuma, who comes from a Kurdish village in the southeastern region of Anatolia, headed for the cockpit of the Boeing 737-800 less than an hour before arrival at Istanbul and demanded that the aircraft return to Oslo, claiming to have a bomb.
• 'Pakistan must make efforts to root out extremism'
• Taseer was gunned down by his own security guard who claimed he was offended by the Governor''s criticism of the controversial blasphemy law.
• Pentagon to give special focus to Asia: Mike Mullen
• Washington: The US Defense Department would lend special focus to Asia to demonstrate a responsible military leadership in the region, America's top military leader has said.
• India's contributions to reg stability worthwhile: Mike 
• The acknowledgment came from Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in his annual guidance for 2011 in which he reaffirmed that America''s strategic objective in the Af-Pak region is to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida and to prevent its return to either Afghanistan or Pakistan.
• Copts feel marginalised in land of ancestors
• Cairo: The head of the Coptic church, Pope Shenuda III, expressed the despair of his beleaguered people by saying after Saturday''s bombing in Alexandria that "everyone in Egypt must enjoy full rights of citizenship, without discrimination." Copts account for up to 10 per cent of Egypt''s population of 80 million and are the largest Christian community in the Middle East.
• Mali says 'foreigner' attacked French embassy
• Bamako: "We are on the Al-Qaeda track," the source said. "The Tunisian we have arrested told us he belongs to Al-Qaeda." The source said the man belonged to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI), which experts believe has bases spread across Algeria, Mauritania and Mali.
• In squalid Haiti camps, rape stalks women: Amnesty
• Washington: They are women like Guerline, who two months after losing her husband when their home crumbled to the ground in the devastating quake, had to watch as her teenage daughter was raped in a makeshift tarpaulin camp in Port-au-Prince.
• UK bombings hero firefighter jailed for drug ring role
• London: Simon Ford won an award from the London fire brigade after risking his life to get victims off a bus that was blown up during the suicide attacks that hit the capital.
• Australian navy thwarts pirate attack on British ship
• Sydney: HMAS Melbourne rushed to the rescue of the British-flagged chemical carrier after it came under attack on Monday afternoon, a statement said.
• Explosion at French Embassy in Mali
• Paris: Christine Fages says the cause of the explosion last evening in Bamako was not immediately clear, but it was not an accident.
• Angry crowd forces Israeli PM to halt speech
• Jerusalem: Family members shouted that he should be held responsible for the handling of the disaster response. Others directed their anger at Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who was escorted out of the hall. Firefighting services are part of his ministry.
• Israel troops fire on Palestinians at Gaza border
• Jerusalem: Troops identified the Palestinians apparently trying to breach the fence and opened fire yesterday, a military spokesman said. "Apparently one Palestinian was killed and the second was injured," he said.
• Egypt releases sketch of 'suicide bomber'
• Le Caire: Police said the photo was distributed to the news media yesterday in hopes that its publication might yield clues on the identity of the man.
• Two adults wounded in US school shooting: Police
• Omaha (Nebraska): Omaha police officer Jake Bettin said no students were wounded during the shooting yesterday at Millard South High School, and the suspect was in custody.
• Gbagbo lays down terms for lifting siege of I Coast rival
• Abidjan: Foreign Minister Alcide Djedje yesterday said that strongman Gbagbo, who most of the world says lost November''s presidential run-off but has refused to relinquish power, would not go into exile despite offers aimed at ending the crisis.
• White House notes 'serious crimes' of Israeli spy
• Washington: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the unusually public appeal to President Barack Obama on Tuesday, and the White House said Tuesday it was reviewing the issue.
• UN official seeks Ivory Coast reinforcements
• United Nations: Le Roy said yesterday that he had told the UN Security Council that the UN mission is "running more and more risks carrying out our mandate" because of tensions between incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo and internationally-recognized president Alassane Ouattara.
• France confirms explosion at its embassy in Mali
• Bamako (Mali): The blast appeared to be small and caused only minor damage to an outer gate of the building.
• Palestinians look for early vote on UN resolution
• United Nations: However Palestinians are not yet sure whether the United States will veto the resolution as part of its traditional support of Israel, the representative Riyad Mansour told AFP.
• Turkish Airlines flight safe after threat
• Istanbul: There were no injuries.
• Hundreds more birds found dead in US state
• Murray (US): The grackles, red wing blackbirds, robins and starlings were found last week.
• Chavez spurred Morales to seize oil: cables
• La Paz: A US cable published by WikiLeaks from Brasilia showed consternation in Brazil over the 2006 nationalization drive, which affected the Brazilian-owned giant Petrobras as well as other foreign energy firms.
• Republicans challenge US birthright citizenship
• Washington: The group, from Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania said yesterday it was seeking to discourage undocumented migrants from coming to the country to give birth so that their children will be US nationals.
• Son of ex-Iranian shah says brother had depression
• Boston: Reza Pahlavi fought back tears as he remembered his brother, Alireza Pahlavi, 44, and spoke about how depression has taken a toll on his family. His sister, Leila, 31, was found dead in a London hotel room in 2001 after overdosing on barbiturates.
• Hungary shows flexibility as Brussels examines law
• Budapest: But he added, "Let''s wait for the comments of the European Commission, then we''ll see how the situation can be remedied." "We''ll see what kind of comments, criticism will be made and then we can sit down together (to talk)," he noted.
• German baby abandoned in suitcase
• Berlin: Police said a passer-by alerted the porter of the hotel to the unattended luggage yesterday. Hotel security workers partially opened the small, black suitcase, but only saw clothes. They stored it in the hotel''s luggage room.
• Archives shows rarely seen Reagan documents in DC
• Washington: The small collection unveiled today will be part of a rotating exhibit of the former president''''s documents and items to mark the 100th anniversary of Reagan''''s birth on February 6.
• Three NATO soldiers, three Afghans killed in unrest
• Kabul: Two soldiers were killed in an improvised bomb explosion in eastern Afghanistan and a third died in a similar attack in the country''s south, NATO''s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in statements.
• Karzai, US ambassador at odds over private security
• Kabul: In a meeting at the presidential palace, Ambassador Karl W Eikenberry told Karzai an extra 25,000 private security guards needed to be recruited before development projects go ahead, a participant at the gathering told AFP.
• NATO: USD 20 billion over 2 yrs for Afghan training
• Kabul: He says NATO''s training presence will continue through at least 2016.
• Bodyguard says Michael Jackson doc concealed vials
• Los Angeles: Alberto Alvarez was the first security guard to reach the bedroom where prosecutors say Murray administered a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol to Jackson on June 25, 2009.
• Explosion in Guyana kills one person, injures thirteen
• Georgetown (Guyana): Georgetown Police Commander George Vyphuis says investigators are trying to determine what caused the blast near the sprawling Stabroek Market.
• Brazil examines Twitter threats against president
• Brasilia: Copies of the messages had been handed over to the attorney general''s office, and federal police would launch their own probe if the threats appeared credible, a police spokesman said.
• US China relationship on right track: Yang
• "I think the China-US relationship is on the right track," Yang told reporters ahead of a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
• Hamas to issue personal firearm permits
• Gaza City: "The police have decided to authorise the issue of weapons permits for individuals or person who need them for self-defence, such as gold traders, money changers, businessmen and factory owners," Hamas police spokesman Amin al-Batniji said in a statement.

Business

• Onion prices set to rise in Punjab after Pak bans exports
• Chandigarh: "There is going to be pressure on retail rates of onions after the ban imposed on export by Pak... From tomorrow onward, prices will move up by Rs 5 to 7 a kg."
• 'Pvt edu institutions with profit motive worrisome'
• Mumbai: "Indeed with the growing share of privately funded for- profit educational institutions, this may be emerging as a worrisome barrier to freer access to knowledge for all our people," he said giving away Infosys Science Foundation awards here.
• Gold declines for fourth day on dollar, less demand
• New York: The gold fell USD 5.80, or 0.4 per cent, to USD 1,367.90 an ounce, after touching a low of USD 1,366.20. Silver followed suit and lost 0.2 per cent to USD 29.19 an ounce.
• 'Remove supply side bottlenecks to check inflation'
• New Delhi: "It has moved further. It is an area of concern," Mukherjee told reporters here.
• NTPC eyes Maldives to set up solar power projects
• New Delhi: NTPC is conducting feasibility study in Maldives to explore the potential of the island nation for setting up solar power projects. The final report is expected in the next 3-4 months.
• Thais charge 2 Romanians over UK banking scam
• Bangkok: Danail Vint, 25, and Sergiu Virgil Roatis, 24, were arrested in Bangkok yesterday after Thai banks working with their European counterparts notified police of the fraud, Thailand''s Central Investigation Bureau said in a statement.
• HDFC Life launches ProGrowth Flexi
• Mumbai: "In line with our customer centric approach, for the first time in the industry, HDFC Life offers 30 day free look-in. As ULIPs are the under the new regulatory regime are different, we believe that the customers may need time to get familiar with the new generation of ULIPs and fully comprehend the benefits available under the policy," HDFC Life Managing Director and CEO Amitabh Chaudhry said in a statement here.
• RBI policy ineffective in checking food inflation
• New Delhi: "Food prices have once again gone up and this shows that monetary policy has become an ineffective tool for containing food inflation," Ficci Secretary General Amit Mitra said.
• DoT collects Rs 93 cr as penalty from new operators
• New Delhi: "We have received Rs 93 crore from new operators. The total demand is Rs 219 crore," Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters here.
• Irda asks insurers not to charge differential premium
• New Delhi: In the papers submitted to Irda before launching any product, insurers mention a range within which the premium rates would vary depending on unfavourable risk factors.
• Gold, silver continues to slip on stockists offloading
• Mumbai: "The precious metals may find difficulties on higher side due to dollar strength at overseas where the commodities face the brunt of selling pressure," traders said.
• Telecom body welcomes Sibal's 100 days agenda
• New Delhi: "It is laudable to know about the formulation of a comprehensive National Telecom Policy 2011, including recognition of telecom as infrastructure and essential services. We are confident that these steps will definitely propel the growth of Indian telecom sector to further growth," CDMA industry association AUSPI said in a statement.
• Domestic natural rubber prices hit all-time high
• New Delhi: Prices of natural rubber closed at Rs 210.5 per kg in the Kottayam and Kochi market yesterday, compared to Rs 209.5/kg in the previous session.
• Gold imports may rise by 15 pc to 805 tonne: GJF
• Mumbai: "The demand for jewellery is growing and we expect the imports to grow by 10-15 per cent this year. In 2010, the total gold imports stood at 700 tonne," All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation Chairman Vinod Hayagriv told reporters on the sidelines of leadership summit for the jewellery industry.
• Japan backs firms' green city projects abroad
• Tokyo: The public-private Innovation Network Corp. of Japan plans to invest up to 130 billion yen (USD 1.5 billion) in such eco-community projects, more of which are planned for China and Southeast Asia, the Nikkei daily said.
• Citibank: Police looking for missing iPad of Puri
• Gurgaon: Puri, Relationship Manager of Citibank and mastermind of the high-profile banking fraud, was reportedly using the latest electronic device to communicate with his clients, sources said.
• India drew 6.46 lakh foreign tourists in December
• New Delhi: 6.55 lakh foreign tourists visited India in December as compared to 6.46 lakh in December 2009, an increase of 1.4 per cent, according to the data prepared by Tourism Ministry.
• Indian watch market to touch Rs 8,500 cr in 5 yrs
• New Delhi: As per the report - Indian Time Wear Industry 2010 - published by All India Federation of Horological Industries (AIFHI) and consultancy firm Technopak Advisors, the current size of watch market in India is about Rs 4,000-4,200 crore.
• India, Denmark to mull investing in shipping sector
• New Delhi: "The two sides discussed key areas of bilateral cooperation...and decided on exploring possibilities for cooperation between the two countries in the areas of ship designing, maritime training and education, off-shore wind energy, green-house-gas emissions," an official statement said.
• Eight overseas Income Tax offices to open soon
• New Delhi: The I-T overseas units will begin functioning in less than two months in United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), Netherlands, Cyprus, Germany, France, Japan and United Arab Emirates (UAE) as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has approved the posting policy of the officials who will be appointed by January-end, sources familiar with the development said.
• Sharp rise in food inflation drags down Sensex
• Mumbai: Opening firm, the Bombay Stock Exchange bellwether Sensex failed to maintain the momentum and closed lower by 116.36 points or 0.57 per cent at 20,184.74 - the level last seen on December 29, 2010.
• Suzlon bags Rs 865-cr order from Hindustan Zinc
• Mumbai: The project entails setting up 150 mw capacity in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu by September, besides operating and maintaining the mills, a release issued by Suzlon from Pune said today.
• Revenue receipts go up by 20% in Karnataka
• Bangalore: This was disclosed in Karnataka Governor H R Bhardwaj''s proposed speech at a joint session of the state legislature, where he also informed that growth in commercial tax collections in the state was higher than any of its neighbours. However, no figures were mentioned.
• Citibank fraud: Puri's police remand extended
• Gurgaon: Puri was arrested last week in connection with the Citibank fraud at a local branch here and was sent on police remand for a week.
• Centre approves 9 solar power projects for Haryana
• Chandigarh: These projects will get commissioned by September this year, an official release said here today.
• Global IT spending to grow 5.1 pc in 2011: Gartner
• Bangalore: In 2010, worldwide IT spending amounted to USD 3.4 trillion, a 5.4 per cent increase from 2009.
• 2010 was a turning point for online ads: Study
• New Delhi: Aimed at providing an insight into the user behaviour across advertising sectors, the Ozone Media Performance Users Study (OPUS) is an analysis of nearly a quarter of a million leads generated from campaigns that were run on the Ozone Media network from July 2009 to June 2010.
• Unexpected spurt in food inflation numbers: Basu
• New Delhi: Chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu told reporters that movement of onions, whose price rise resulted in inflation climbing to 18.32 per cent, should be facilitated to bring down its cost.
• China,US join to build world's largest solar power plant
• Beijing: First Solar Inc, a US-based renewable energy company, signed a memorandum of understanding with China Guangdong Nuclear Solar Energy Development Co Ltd (CGN SEDC) to jointly develop the world''s largest solar power plant.
• India's tea imports dip by 22 per cent to 16 million kg
• New Delhi: The country had imported 20.55 million kg tea during the January-October period of the previous year.
• Merck and Ranbaxy drug development deal called off
• New Delhi: Both Ranbaxy and MSD Pharmaceuticals, Indian affiliate of US-based Merck & Co Inc confirmed the development, but refused to give the details or reasons for ending the pact.
• Govt amends Power Tariff Policy, boost clean energy usage
• New Delhi: "The solar power purchase obligation for states may start with 0.25 per cent in phase I (by 2013) and go up to 3 per cent by 2022," an official statement said.
• Tata launches diesel vehicle 'Venture' in Rajathan
• Jaipur: "We are launching the product first in Rajathan and later it will be launched in other states. The vehicle is with the footprint and manoeuvrability of a hatchback car, but the interior space of a utility vehicle," the company''s Head Marketing and Sales S Saxena told reporters here.
• Citi fraud: Sebi probes violation in income proof rules
• New Delhi: The market regulator had made it mandatory in December 2009 for the brokerage firms to collect income proof documents from all their clients before allowing them to trade in derivatives segment of the market.
• Govt clears Rs 70-cr budgetary support for 10 CPSEs
• New Delhi: The funds approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) would be used for clearing employees'''' dues from April-June,2010 for the CPSEs under the Department of Heavy Industry.
• 'Economy to grow 8.8% in '10-11, inflation a concern'
• The multilateral lending agency, however, expressed concern over rising prices and underlined the need for controlling inflationary expectations by more monetary actions by the Reserve Bank.
• L&T's construction division bags Rs 1,181 crore order
• New Delhi: The order includes construction of residential buildings, factories, including a specialised support facility building, the company said in a statement.
• R-Infra to allot shares worth Rs 4,000 cr to promoter
• Mumbai: The shares will be alloted pursuant to the promoter group entity AAA Project Ventures Pvt Ltd exercising option to convert the warrants alloted to them in July 2009.
• Govt approves policy for power allocation of CPSEs
• New Delhi: "The proposal is for allocation of 50 per cent power to the ''home'' states, where the projects are located, 35 per cent to the other constituents of the region and 15 per cent power as unallocated power at the disposal of the Centre," a government official said after the Cabinet meeting.
• TDSAT reserves judgement on Uninor against DoT's penalty drive
• New Delhi: Uninor is a joint venture between reality firm Unitech and telecom firm Telenor of Norway.
• 'India, China to keep leading Asian economic growth'
• "We expect growth to remain strong. We expect it to settle at a more sustainable rate of about 7 per cent for Asia as a whole, slightly down from 8 percent in 2010. We see China and India continuing to lead Asia''s growth," IMF Head (Asia-Pacific) Anoop Singh said on yesterday.
• Inox up by 17 pc, Fame tumbles over 5 pc on BSE
• Mumbai: Both Reliance MediaWorks and Inox Leisure had announced their open offers last month to wrest control of the multiplex operator.
• Rising food inflation a concern: Pranab Mukherjee
• New Delhi: "It has moved further. It is an area of concern," the finance minister told reporters after the government''s weekly data showed that the food inflation kept climbing for the fifth straight week.
• Inflation up to 18.32% on rising vegetables prices
• New Delhi: Food inflation jumped up by 3.88 pc pts from 14.44 pc recorded in the previous reporting week, and edged closer to the high level of 19.90 pc, last witnessed a year ago.
• Govt deferment on urea decontrol hits fertiliser shares
• Mumbai: Disappointed by the delay on deregulation of urea prices, Chambal Fertilisers & Chemicals witnessed a decline of 6.68 per cent at Rs 80.95 a share in the morning trade.
• Currency, human rights on agenda with China: US
• Also on the discussion table will be the situation in the Korea peninsula, given China''s close association with North Korea, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters at his daily news conference.
• Alphonso production likely to rise 25 pc this season
• Mumbai: Alphonso mango production is likely to be up by 25 per cent this season and touch the two-million tonne mark due to good flowering, said a top government official today.
• Goa to give 95% funding to SHGs setting new ventures
• Panaji: Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat will be unveiling this subsidy on January 26 covering small-time self help groups spread across the states.
• Rupee down 4 paise against US dollar in early trade
• Mumbai: Forex dealers said dollar's gains against other Asian currencies along with demand for the US dollar from importers put pressure on the rupee.
• BSE benchmark Sensex opens up by 125 points
• Mumbai: The 30-share index of the BSE, which had lost about 260 pts in the previous two sessions, recovered by 124.75 pts or 0.62 pc at 20,425.85 level in the opening trade, today.
• Oil mixed in Asia, despite sharp fall in US inventories
• Singapore: New York''s main contract, light sweet crude for February delivery, was up 11 cents to USD 90.41 per barrel.
• Rupee loses 11 paise against dollar in morning trade
• Mumbai: At the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the domestic unit resumed lower at 45.40/41 per dollar as against the yesterday''s closing level of 45.32/33 per dollar and moved down further to 45.43 per dollar before quoting at 45.33/34 per dollar at 1030hrs.

Sports

• Sangakkara writes to BCCI about non-payment of IPL dues
• New Delhi: "Yes, Sangakkara has written to the BCCI about non-clearance of his dues. The matter came up for discussion during GC meeting."
• Pakistan anti-corruption tribunal underway
• Doha: The hearing, being held behind closed doors at the Qatar Financial Centre, is scheduled to run until January 11, although lawyers have indicated a verdict may come earlier.
• Cook better batsman than KP: Anderson
• London: Anderson, who had earlier contradicted Pietersen''s view that sacking of former coach Peter Moores laid the foundation of Ashes victory, said Cook''s mental strength and shot selection marked him out as a special batsman.
• India need to bat for one more session to draw match
• Cape Town: Set a stiff target of 340 for a win, the visitors lost the wicket of Rahul Dravid (31) and added 61 runs in the post-lunch session.
• SA include spinner Tahir in squad for ODI series
• Cape Town: In-form Jacques Kallis was not considered because of the rib injury he sustained in the third Test here while Mark Boucher still remains out of South Africa''s limited-overs plans.
• Gandhi upsets Girish in Khar Gymkhana snooker
• Mumbai: Gandhi rallied from a 1-3 deficit to beat Girish 54-67 61-48 39-71 9-74 68-22 63-49 78-66 in a thrilling best-of-seven frames contest and then followed it up with a 4-0 rout of Nishad Chowgule (Pune) to advance to the quarter finals of the qualifying stage. Chowgule had put out Aditya Agarwal of Mumbai 4-3.
• Valmiki slams seven goals in Mumbai's big victory
• Mumbai: The Mumbai boys, who led 14-0 at half time, rode roughshod over their rivals from Aurangabad at the MHA-Mahindra Stadium with captain Yuvraj Valmiki leading from the front by firing home seven goals, which included a hat-trick.
• Pitted against Asia's best, India face daunting task
• Doha: India, who are playing in the tournament after a gap of 27 years by virtue of winning the AFC Challenge Cup, lost seven out of nine international friendlies in the build-up to the continent''s showpiece event, including a 1-9 and a 0-5 thrashing at the hands of Kuwait and UAE.
• Rach wants to coach women team, SAI says no
• Rach, who was the first foreign coach of Indian men''s hockey team, had sent his application to SAI and Hockey India (HI) for the post of chief coach of women''s hockey team.
• Parimarjan, Abhijeet to lead in Parsvnath chess
• New Delhi: Parimarjan, the second youngest Grandin the world, will be the cynosure of all eyes in the tournament as he will be playing in the Capital for the first time after winning the national title last month.
• India fined for slow over-rate in third Test
• Cape Town: Andy Pycroft of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees imposed the fines after India were ruled to be three overs short of its target when time allowances were taken into consideration.
• Somdev gets wildcard for Australian Open
• Melbourne: It will be Somdev''s first appearance in the main draw of Australian Open, starting from January 17, as he had failed in his earlier two attempts to clear the qualifying round.
• India crawl to 53 for one vs South Africa
• Cape Town: The Indians lost Virender Sehwag (11) during the session which saw runs come a slow pace on a difficult Newlands track.
• IPL 4 players' auction live on SET Max
• New Delhi: MAX, the official broadcaster of the Players'' Auction and the IPL, will telecast a ring side view of the event on both the days as the team owners battle it out to buy their desired players to make their dream teams.
• Pacemen Trent Copeland & Pattinson get PM XI call
• Sydney: They will replace Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, who will miss Monday''s match at Manuka Oval through injury.
• Warne reveals plans to lift Australia out of morass
• Melbourne: Warne said "it''s time to draw a line in the sand with Australian cricket" as was done in the mid-1980s, if the team wants to be No. 1 again.
• Ashes test: England on verge of victory in Sydney
• Sydney: Matt Prior scored the third hundred of the England innings before the visitors were dismissed for 644 - their highest total ever in Australia - shortly after lunch today.
• Geoffrey Boycott blames selectors for Australia woes
• Sydney: Boycott told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio today the confused selection policies which saw Australia change its bowling and batting lineups throughout the five-test series helped England''''s cause.
• Bereaved Ajmal to miss Pak's opening Test against NZ
• Hamilton: Ajmal''s father passed away on Tuesday after being taken to hospital for treatment of fever and the off-spinner is flying back to Pakistan to attend the funeral.
• Players can't fool technology: England's Alastair Cook
• Sydney: In the ongoing fifth Ashes Test against Australia, visiting batsman Ian Bell challenged the umpire''s decision after being adjudged out caught behind and had the decision overturned in his favour through a controversial referral which could not provide any conclusive evidence for or against the on-field official''s verdict.
• Australian cricket slump worse since 70s: Harvey
• Melbourne: Harvey was chairman of Australia''''s selection panel when Packer''''s privately contracted World Series Cricket split the game in two in a row over television rights.
• England amass its highest total ever after record 644
• Sydney: Matt Prior scored the third hundred of the innings before England was dismissed for 644 shortly after lunch today.
• Hot-Spot hitting umpires' confidence: Hair & Boycott
• Melbourne: In the ongoing Ashes Test between England and Australia during which Ian Bell was first adjudged out caught behind by on-field umpire Aleem Dar before his seemingly correct decision was overturned after a referral.
• New Zealand & Pakistan switch to test cricket mode
• Hamilton: The Twenty20 series, won 2-1 by New Zealand, satisfied fans'''' appetite for the shortest form of the game and the extended one-day series will cap the teams'''' preparation for the World Cup which starts on the subcontinent in February.
• Chelsea crisis deepens as Wolves stun Blues
• London: An own goal by defender Jose Bosingwa after five minutes handed victory to Wolves, who climbed out of the relegation zone as Chelsea''s miserable run of form - just one win in nine matches - continued.
• Referrals 'belittling' umpires: English umpiring great 
• London: The English umpiring great believes the increased use of technology, as witnessed during the ongoing fifth and final Ashes Test between England and Australia in Sydney, will turn cricket''s top officials into mere bystanders.
• Prior 3rd centurion as England push lead to 356 runs
• Sydney: England equalled their highest score at the SCG set back in 1928-29 when they went to lunch at 636 for nine.
• Barcelona makes Copa del Rey quarters on away goal
• Barcelona: After a 0-0 draw in the first leg, Barcelona defender Eric Abidal raced in from the left flank to fire in a pass from Lionel Messi for the 76th-minute opener yesterday. The goal was only the second in Abidal''s career, the first coming with Lyon.
• Allrounder Collingwood retires from test cricket
• Sydney: Paul Collingwood will retire from test cricket when the Ashes series finishes this week. He told teammates yesterday & the England Cricket Board confirmed it today.

 07.01.2011
National

• 'Google Earth does not violate national security'
• Mumbai: "We use the images that are in the public domain and we do not use any secret images," Chief Technology Advocate of Google, Michael Jones, said at a public lecture during the two-day Technology Festival (Techfest-2011) at the Indian Institute of Technology here.
• Fix target for jobs to youths in global mkt: Omar
• Jammu: "You have to tackle three-pronged challenges of global economic scenario, international job market requirements and prevailing perception of Jammu and Kashmir outside," he told the corporation officials here.
• BJP supported non-Congress govt in Assam
• Guwahati: "It is our belief that the people will oust the corrupt Congress regime and a BJP supported non-Congress government will be formed," Gadkari told reporters here.
• Educational institutions observe bandh in Telangana
• Hyderabad: Pro-Telangana students took out rallies at many places in the region.
• CM refuses comment on CEC report on mining
• Bangalore: "I don''t want to react to it. I don''t know the details. I will comment on the report after the Supreme Court takes a final decision," he told reporters when asked to comment on the report submitted by the Central Empowered Committee (CEC).
• 'As a Muslim, I ask Kashmiri Pandits to forgive us'
• New Delhi: "I think it was one of the darkest chapters in the history of the state that will always remain and for which even for years if we ask God for forgiveness I wonder if it will ever come," he said.
• UPA Govt misusing investigating agencies: BJP
• Guwahati: Without naming RSS leaders, the BJP spokesman said, "the confession was made under the duress of the investigation agencies but firing gun against the RSS and VHP from the shoulders of someone else like the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and its selective leaks is deeply condemnable." He said BJP would welcome action against anyone if one was found guilty of any terror attacks.
• Students' protest continue at Osmania University
• Hyderabad: A senior police officer said that students indulged in heavy stone-pelting when they were prevented from holding a rally. Stone-pelting continued at various places throughout the day.
• No plan to leave India, says Binayak Sen's wife
• Nagpur: Binayak Sen was recently convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court in Chhattisgarh on the charge of sedition.
• 'Trinamool Congress politicking over deaths'
• Kolkata: "The bodies that the Trinamool Congress is parading in the metropolis are of Congress workers. The Trinamool Congress has bought the bodies for staging their drama here. They are politicking with deaths," Bose, the state secretary of CPI(M) and Left Front chairman, told a SFI rally here.
• CPI slams govt for 'failure' to control prices
• New Delhi: "The ministerial committee which is supposed to take action, instead expresses concern at the price rise. This is a cruel joke on the people," the party''s Central Secretariat said in a statement here.
• Aseemanand spills beans on right wing extremists
• New Delhi: Aseemanand(59) gave a detailed description of the involvement of the activists and self-styled spiritual leaders in several terror attacks across the country during the last three years in his confessional statement given to a Special CBI court here, the agencies said.
• 'If no wrongdoing in 2G allocation, why did Raja quit'
• Guwahati: "If the entire argument is that there was no loss to the exchequer then why did Raja resign from the Government?," asked senior leader Arun Jaitley.
• 'Faheem cheated Pak govt by giving false info'
• Mumbai: The passport itself was not a forged document but the information given by Faheem was false, Nikam told a division bench which is hearing an appeal filed by the Maharashtra government against the order of the trial court acquitting Faheem and Sabauddin Ahmed due to "doubtful evidence".
• Chidambaram asks Bengal CM to visit Delhi
• New Delhi: Describing today''s violence in Lalgarh as a "grave incident", Chidambaram said he has received information that eight people were killed in the firing and 18 others were injured in it.
• Award to DTC for lowest accident record
• New Delhi: The award, instituted by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, was given to DTC at a function attended among others by Minister of Road Transport and Highways Kamal Nath.
• Federation ask for intervention Bihar CM 
• Kolkata: Alleging victimisation of the employees for having gone on strike in support of their demands including pay revision, federation vice-president Sukomal Sen said in a faxed letter to Kumar said that the employees should not be harassed for agitating on genuine demands.
• Ramesh questions construction of CWG Village, Akshardham
• New Delhi: Raising questions over construction of CWG Village and Akshardham Temple, Environment Minister today said the former should not have been given clearance.
• Take action against hoarders, Pranab tells CMs
• New Delhi: Food inflation has touched a high level in more than a year at 18.32 per cent for the week ended December 25 as costlier onions and vegetables jacked up prices of essential items.
• Sangma to demand probe into ethnic violence
• Shillong: "The intension is proper justice. If there is any deficiency anywhere, the truth should come out. It is important to find out how the strife of such magnitude erupted. Such incidents should be prevented in future," he told PTI before leaving for Delhi.
• Dutt files appeal against attachment of properties
• Mumbai: On December 29, Dutt''s Pali Hill residential flat was placed under attachment while a notice was pasted on his office premises at Mayfair building in suburban Santacruz.
• Railways earnings up nearly 8 per cent
• New Delhi: The public sector behemoth earned Rs 67,880.82 crore during April-December 2010 as compared to Rs 63,009.23 crore earned during the same period last year, registering an increase of 7.73 per cent.
• Maoists kill CPI(M) leader in Junglemahal
• Jhargram (WB): Dilip Mahato (45) was missing since last evening and his body was found about four km away from his house near a canal early today, they said.
• Congress asks Nitish to remove Modi
• Patna: "Modi has given a clean chit to the slain MLA despite a complaint of sexual harassment by the accused, Rupam Pathak," Bihar PCC spokesperson Premchandra Mishra told newsmen here.
• Abdullah to ask developers to adopt green buildings
• New Delhi: During his address at the National Conference on Green Designs: Buildings and Habitats, the Minister said he would be meeting leading developers to seek their cooperation in achieving energy security and ecological security through green and sustainable construction activities.
• Buddhadeb should step down imediately : Congress
• Kolkata: "Jungle raj is prevailing in the state now. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has totally lost control over the administration. He has no right to be in power for a single moment and should step down immediately," WBPCC president Manas Bhunia told reporters on the killings at Laqlgarh during the day.
• Don't record politicians' visits, phone calls: Maha 
• Mumbai: The direction by Maharashtra police headquarters that appeared to be loaded in favour of politicians having a penchant for interfering in the course of law came amid a controversy over the former chief minister using his office to to influence a police case to protect another politician.
• Steps to simplify process of obtaining passports
• New Delhi: Informing this, External Affairs Ministry S M Krishna today said 77 PSKs and 14 mini PSKs will be set up in the country gradually in three phases and will triple the number of passport counters to 1250, making the process of applying for passports convenient.
• SP seeks referendum on issue of corruption
• New Delhi: "There should be a referendum on the issue of corruption.
• BJD, Congress doing politics over farmers plight
• Bhubaneswar: "While the Centre released Rs 400 crore and Rs 600 crore as interim relief for farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra respectively, it deliberately delayed assistance to Orissa by sending a team to access the damage," CPI(M) state secretary Janardan Pati told reporters here.
• Court directs CBI to give report to Aarushi's parents
• The court also fixed January 21 as the next date of hearing.
• 'Make periodic review of threat perception on judges'
• Kochi: A direction in this regard was issued by a division bench, comprising Chief Justice J Chelemeswar and Justice P R Ramachandran Menon on a petition by Basil Attipetty of Ernakulam, seeking a direction to the State Home Secretary and DGP to provide adequate and efficient police protection to serving and retired judges in the state.
• TDP MLAs demand recall of Andhra Governor
• Hyderabad: Telugu Desam Telangana Forum convener Nagam Janardhana Reddy led the protest.
• Farooq slams BJP for plans to unfurl tricolour
• New Delhi: "Just being in BJP does not give you certificate of being a nationalist. After failing to mislead the nation on the issue of JPC to go into the 2G scam, BJP has now come up with the idea of hoisting the flag at Lal Chowk," the former Chief Minister told reporters here.
• Jayalalithaa slams Guv's address to TN Assembly
• Chennai: She said no steps had been suggested to control prices.
• GoM set up to look at 'paid news' issue
• New Delhi: The GoM, which would be headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, would suggest a comprehensive policy and institutional mechanisms to tackle paid news, sources said.
• Nitish for multi-pronged strategy in energy sector
• Patna: "Adopt multi-pronged strategy for making the Board self-reliant in energy sector," Kumar said, while reviewing the performance of the state electricity Board.
• Cabinet reshuffle PM's prerogative: Krishna
• New Delhi: He said while speculation was "exclusive prerogative" of media, the decision (cabinet reshuffling) was ultimately the Prime Minister''s.
• Higher office aspiration behind Telangana demand
• Hyderabad: This is one of the significant findings of the five-member Justice Srikrishna Committee that studied the situation in Andhra Pradesh for over 11 months.
• CJI's brother quits post on health grounds
• Kochi: Bhaskaran resigned citing health problems amid allegations of amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income with his exit coming two days after Balakrishnan''s son-in-law P V Sreenijan quit Youth Congress on similar charges.
• Indian missions under constant threat in Afghanistan
• New Delhi: Noting that several lives have been lost due to attacks on Indian missions, Krishna said the government was working with the Afghan government to ensure that enough protection was provided to embassy and consulates to avoid any more casualties.
• India to ink extradition treaty, MLAT with Indonesia
• New Delhi: Giving a boost to the Strategic Partnership signed in 2005, the two countries will ink a number of agreements in the fields of business, energy, science, education and culture during Yudhoyono''s three-day visit beginning January 24, Indonesian Ambassador Lt Gen Andi M Ghalib told reporters here.
• Court begins proceedings on Swamy's complaint against Raja
• New Delhi: "I am of the opinion that complaint as such is maintainable," Special CBI Judge Pradeep Chaddah said, beginning the court proceedings on Swamy's complaint.
• BJP trying to disturb situation in Kashmir: Farooq
• New Delhi: "This (BJP) is a party which wants to destroy India and doesn''''''''''''''''t want to strengthen it. They want to start new disputes. We want to improve the situation but they want to disturb that situation," he said.
• India looking forward to Pak Foreign Minister's visit
• New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said, "The indication given to me by Qureshi was that sometime in the first quarter of 2011, he would be visiting Delhi and we are looking forward to it." He said before Qureshi''s visit "two foreign secretaries will meet and clear the ground for a very productive meeting at the level of foreign ministers." Krishna rejected a contention that his previous meeting with Qureshi in Islamabad failed due to lack of proper ground work done by the officials in the two countries.
• Obamas send Xmas gifts for underprivileged children
• Mumbai: Michelle had played with these kids and swayed to the tunes of a hit number from Aamir Khan-starrer''Rang De Basanti'' at the Mumbai University campus here, after she interacted with them at a programme organised by NGO ''Make A Difference'' (MAD) on her visit to the city last year in November.
• Former CJI''s brother resigns as special govt pleader
• Kochi: Bhaskaran resigned on health grounds, court sources said.
• Jobs for youth is my earnest mission, says Omar
• Srinagar: "While certain political leaders make the youth pick up stones, my government is placing job orders in their hands and providing them with avenues for better career and bright future," he said, addressing a gathering in south Kashmir''s Anantnag district yesterday.
• 'Doubling special plan allocation no new package'
• Patna: "It is in no way a new or special package for Bihar," Modi said while reacting to reports that the Centre''s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had approved a proposal to enhance the allocation for the special plan for Bihar from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 crore in 2010-11.
• RSS accuses CBI of leaking Aseemanand's confession
• New Delhi: "This deliberate leaking of document confirms further the alleged interest of agencies is not to probe cases but malign the reputation of the organisations and individuals," RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav said.
• One labourer killed, 24 others injured in mishap
• Firozabad (UP): The mini-truck carrying labourers of a glass factory met with the accident between Maudha and district headquarter under Matsaina police station area, they said.
• More arson cases in Assam-Meghalaya ethnic violence
• Shillong: An abandoned village was burnt in Resubelpara late last night while a shop was torched in the district headquarters town of Williamnagar, Deputy Commissioner Pravin Bakshi said today.
• Govt asks overseas Indians to invest in health, edu
• New Delhi: In his inaugural speech, Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi invited the 25-million strong diaspora to be part of the "India growth story" and take the country forward in diverse sectors.
• Talwars to get CBI closure report; case to be heard on Jan 21
• Ghaziabad: While hearing the case, the CBI opposed the appeal by Aarushi''''s father to get a copy of the report, saying that he was arrested as an accused in the case.
• Abducted official untraced, family prays for release
• Itanagar: "There is no news and the motive of abduction is also unclear as there has been no ransom demand so far. We have not found any clue or motive for abduction which has made the entire process complicated," an investigating officer said today.
• Kabir Suman embarrasses Trinamool Congress again
• Kolkata: The book, titled ''Nishaner Naam Tapasi Malik'', has an eye-witness account of a meeting held in the office of the Trinamool Congress between party supremo Mamata Banerjee and Maoist leaders Raja Sarkhel and Prasun Chhattapadhyay, who are currently in jail under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
• Technical team inspects Mullaperiyar dam
• Theni (TN): Officials said the committee marked spots at every 100 feet all the along the 1200-feet-long dam before diving down to inspect it yesterday.
• Piercing cold wave continues in Punjab, Haryana
• Chandigarh: With biting cold conditions sweeping across northern region, Narnaul in Haryana remained the coldest place in both states by recording a low of 0.7 deg C, MeT office said today.
• Landslides threaten 300-yr-old  Tawang monastery
• Itanagar: Massive landslides in September and December last year triggered by torrential rain occurred just below the monastery, founded by Merak Lama Lodre Gyatso in 1680-81.
• BJP to sharpen attack against UPA on corruption
• Guwahati: This is the first meeting of the national executive of the party after the 2-G spectrum allocation controversy exploded into a major scam that saw an escalating standoff between the government and the opposition over the issue of JPC probe into it.
• PM dedicates Tarapur reprocessing plant to nation
• Tarapur (Mah):  He said the capabilities of the engineers and scientists could be utilised in new opportunities in international cooperation in nuclear energy.
• Fog disrupts flight operations at IGI
• New Delhi: After dense fog enveloped the airport last night, three domestic and one international flight was diverted to Jaipur, Kolkata and Bangalore, an airport official said.
• Bandh effect: Edu institutes remain shut in Telangana
• Hyderabad: The JAC called for a shutdown of educational institutions in the region against the alleged police action at the varsity yesterday. The students were agitating against the Srikrishna Committee recommendations on the Telangana issue.
• UP parties gearing up for 2012 Assembly polls
• The main opposition Samajwadi Party, which has shortlisted at least five to seven names for each of the 403 constituencies, alleges that the BSP has opened "advance booking" of party tickets which would remain open for bidders offering higher rates till elections.
• Oppn disrupts Governor's address in TN Assembly
• Chennai: As Governor Surjit Singh Barnala was about to start his address, Deputy leader of the AIADMK legislature O Paneerselvam rose and started reading out a written statement, slamming the DMK on many issues, including corruption.
• Small satellite revolution taking root at universities
• With a little push from the Indian space agency, more and more students are now building small satellites.

 International

• Solar storm may disrupt London Olympics
• London: The solar flare may cause power cuts, damage communication satellites and force planes to divert, the ''Daily Mail'' reported today.
• Floods and storms kill 39 in rural South Africa
• Johannesburg: Provincial disaster management confirmed Friday that 26 people, including 4 children, have died as a result of adverse weather conditions in the rural Eastern Cape province since mid-December.
• MQM rejoins PPP led coalition, rejects comeback to Cabinet
• Karachi: But the Muttahida Qaumi Movement leaders, who held crunch talks with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani here, said the party would not join the federal cabinet.
• S African court denies terror suspect's bail appeal
• Johannesburg: National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga says yesterday''s ruling will likely be upheld if Okah appeals.
• UN food agency warns on rising food costs
• Rome: Prices began to rise in August and by December had reached the highest level since the statistical index began in 1990, Aldolreza Abbassian, an economist at the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told AFP.
• Oz feels Chinese military poses "credible" threat
• Melbourne: A strategic assessment by the Australian intelligence agencies found that China''s military spending for 2006 was 90 billion dollars - double the 45 billion dollars announced publicly by Beijing, The Sydney Morning Herald reported today, quoting the American diplomatic cable released by the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.
• Gunmen kill five people in their Iraq home: police
• Baghdad: The gunmen killed the policeman''s sister, her husband''s mother and father, their daughter and a child in their home in Husseiniya, northeast of the capital, the official said.
• 'Qaeda ambush' kills five Yemeni soldiers
• Aden (Yemen): "We were hit today in an Al-Qaeda ambush which resulted in the killing of five soldiers and two others being wounded," a security official who requested anonymity told AFP.
• Suicide bomber kills 17 in Afghanistan
• Kandahar (Afghanistan): NATO also announced today that one of its service members was killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan.
• 6 Taliban militants killed in drone strikes in Pak
• Peshawar: The drones fired missiles at the vehicle in Datta Khel area near Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan Agency, killing four militants.
• Five Indians arrested in Singapore face more charges
• Singapore: They are accused of using an unknown number of counterfeit chips valued at SGD 1,000 each by exchanging them into smaller denominations of the genuine chips at Marina Bay Sands casino on December 29.
• Pak in talks with US to get six surveillance drones
• Pakistan hopes to get six surveillance drone systems, diplomatic sources told the Dawn newspaper.
• Taseer killer's video appears on websites
• The video, shot with a mobile phone, shows Mumtaz Qadri, the police guard who gunned down Taseer in Islamabad on Tuesday, singing a hymn after his arrest.
• US think-tank establishes Chair in US-India studies
• The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) has established the Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies, supported by the Wadhwani Foundation, which is founded and led by CSIS trustee and Symphony Technology Group CEO Romesh Wadhwani.
• Vietnam War 'secret army' chief dies in US hospital
• Los Angeles: "He died today... the family was there," said a spokeswoman for the Clovis Community Medical Center yesterday, some 200 miles (322 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco, adding that he had been at the facility since December 26.
• China commissions two new sea surveillance ships
• The two patrol ships, in the 1,000- and 1,500-tonne classes, respectively, were added to the North Sea fleet of the China Maritime Surveillance Force in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.
• Indian-origin woman dies in UK road mishap
• London: Kausturben Modha, 88, reportedly died instantly when she was struck on a pedestrian crossing just a few yards from her home. She was returning home after spending the afternoon at her son Mukesh''s sweet shop.
• Indonesia to promote people-centred ASEAN
• Jakarta: "People-centred ASEAN is key to making the association relevant to the public and to the attainment of the objectives of the Asean Community," said Indonesia''s Permanent Representative to ASEAN, Ambassador I Gede Ngurah, yesterday at the first official meeting chaired by Indonesia after assuming the Association of South East Asian Nations chair early this year.
• 82 workers fall ill after inhaling chemicals in China
• Beijing: Sixty two workers of the Wanbei Pharmaceutical Co.
• Suicide attack kills 17 at Afghan public bath: police
• Kandahar: A nine-year Taliban insurgency is concentrated in southern Afghanistan, but suicide attacks targeting civilians in public places are relatively rare.
• Pak PM rolls back fuel price hike under pressure
• Following a meeting with leaders of all political parties, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced yesterday that the decision to reverse the fuel price hike in the National Assembly or lower house of parliament.
• India calls for peaceful resolution of Sudan conflict
• United Nations: Ahead of a referendum that may split Sudan in two, Indian Ambassador to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, said it is important to be cautious of the situation to prevent violence from breaking out in the aftermath of the referendum.
• Pak PM Gilani's son accused of corruption
• "Parliamentarians Pirzada Syed Ahmed Imran and Bilal Yasin have not only accused Abdul Qadir Gilani but also his close friend Zain Mohammad Sukhaira, who went to Jeddah thrice even before the start of the Haj season," Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director General Waseem Ahmed told a seven-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
• Decide Taseer killer's case as per Shariah law: JuD
• Jamaat-ud-Dawah leader Maulana Amir Hamza, who is convener of Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool that has been opposing any move to amend the controversial blasphemy law, also hailed the clerics who refused to lead the funeral prayer of Taseer.
• Indian doc in panel to probe Haiti cholera epidemic
• Dr G Balakrish Nair, the Director of the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases of India will be part of the four-member panel chaired by Mexican expert Alejandro Cravioto who works for the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh.
• Over 150,000 explosives rendered harmless in Russia
• Moscow: "The troops cleared a total area of 300 hectares off mines and live rounds in the Chechen republic, the Penza, Kirov, Amur regions, and near the city of Ulyanovsk," chief of Sapper Troops Major General Yuri Stavitsky told Itar-Tass yesterday.
• Lanka dissolves local govt councils ahead of polls
• Colombo: Divisional secretaries have been appointed as "Authorised Officers" to run the administrations of the dissolved councils until the elections could be held.
• Japan, China agree to enhance anti-terrorism coop
• Tokyo: Delegates headed by Takaaki Kojima, Japanese ambassador in charge of international counter-terrorism cooperation, and Luo Zhaohui, the Chinese Foreign Ministry''s director general of the department of external security affairs, shared the view that terrorism remains a grave threat to the international community.
• Pentagon slashes defence budget, envisages cost cutting
• Engaged in what seem like never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where massive funds have flowed in the past decade, the Pentagon has decided to slash its budget for the first time in over 10 years. The last time the Pentagon''s budget was cut was in 1998.
• Flaming parcel devices wound one at US state office
• Washington: The two book-size parcels had been sent to a government building in the Maryland state capital Annapolis and a transportation building in Hanover yesterday, according to officials, who refused to call either incident an explosion.
• US wants to expand military cooperation with China
• Gates is scheduled to leave for China tomorrow for his first official visit to the country since 2007. The visit will see the resumption of military dialogue between the two countries.
• 'Need for strong institutional foundations in Asia'
• He said the explosive issues like North Korea''s nuclear and missile development and its provocative posturing was a cause for major concern.
• US, Japan seek positive movement from NKorea
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the long lasting relationship between the US and Japan is a guarantor of peace and stability in the Asia Pacific region, as she and her visiting Japanese counterpart Seiji Maehara vowed to work together on issues of global and strategic importance.
• Reversing gas price hike by Pak a mistake: Clinton
• Clinton said Pakistan needs to undertake necessary economic reforms for the overall health of the country''s economy.
• Obama takes Clinton Commerce Sec as Chief of Staff
• A fellow Chicagoan, Daley served as Commerce Secretary in the Clinton Administration and currently was an executive with J P Morgan Chase.
• Israeli air force hits sites across Gaza after mortar fire
• Gaza City: On Wednesday, Palestinian militants had fired seven projectiles, most of them mortar shells, across the border without causing any injuries or damage, the army said.
• US sends 1,400 more Marines to Afghanistan
• Washington: Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday "approved additional Marine forces to southern Afghanistan to exploit and consolidate gains already achieved and apply pressure on the enemy during the winter campaign," spokesman Colonel David Lapan told AFP.
• UN names panel to lead Haiti cholera probe
• United Nations: "Determining the source of the cholera outbreak is important for both the United Nations and the people of Haiti," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement released by his spokesman yesterday.
• US court asked to send Perez's body to Venezuela
• Caracas (Venezuela): Carolina Perez Rodriguez told The Associated Press yesterday a lawyer representing her side of the family filed "a motion for the body to be turned over to us," so that it may be flown to Caracas.
• US releases Algerian prisoner from Guantanamo
• San Juan (Puerto Rico): Algerian native Saiid Farhi had been held without charge at the US base in Cuba for nearly nine years. The Department of Defense announced his release yesterday and said it came after a comprehensive review of his case.
• US seeks to resolve trucking dispute with Mexico
• Washington: The Department of Transportation released the proposal, which it called a "concept document," yesterday after showing it to members of Congress. It lays out conditions that Mexican long-haul truck carriers would have to meet, including a safety audit, emissions standards, and driver background checks.
• Ivory Coast expelling British, Canadian envoys
• Pascal Affi N''Guessan, a confidante of Gbagbo and the president of his political party , said yesterday the two ambassadors will be made to leave just as were their Ivorian counterparts.
• Japan seeks action by NKorea for talks to resume
• Washington: Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara yesterday said Tokyo was "gravely concerned" over the North''''s threat to regional stability. He cited two military strikes on South Korea since May, and the North''''s revelation it has a facility to enrich uranium that could provide it an alternative means to make a nuclear bomb.
• Ex-CIA officer charged with leak to Times reporter
• Washington: Federal prosecutors charged Jeffrey Sterling with 10 counts related to improperly keeping and disclosing national security information.
• Gunman suspended before school shooting: Police
• Omaha (Nebraska): Robert Butler Jr was escorted out of Millard South High School on Wednesday morning. A few hours later, he returned and shot both the assistant principal and the principal before fleeing and killing himself, police said.
• Ivory Coast election winner wants rival ousted
• Abidjan (Ivory Coast): Hunkered inside a hotel guarded by UN peacekeepers, Alassane Ouattara told The Associated Press yesterday that Laurent Gbagbo would try to flee if the regional bloc of West African states, the Economic Community of West African States or ECOWAS, sent in troops to oust him.
• Anti-Obama heckler disrupts US Congress
• Washington: Capitol police removed the protester, who shouted "Except Obama! Except Obama! Help us Jesus!" as Democratic Representative Frank Pallone read the passage that spells out the requirements for becoming president.
• US oil spill probe blames bad management
• Washington: Releasing a key chapter of its final report, the panel yesterday also took aim at US government officials, sharply criticising them for lax oversight of both the operation in the Gulf of Mexico and the industry.
• US opposed to Pakistan fuel price hike switch
• Washington: "What we''ve said all along is that the reforms that the government of Pakistan is undertaking are difficult, but they''re important for its long-term economic stability," Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, told reporters.
• Disturbing video shows attacks on disabled victims
• Los Angeles: The Los Angeles County Sheriff''s Department said today an anonymous individual dropped off a computer hard drive containing more than 100 hours of video depicting a sequence of sexual assaults on women, all of whom appear to be disabled.
• Packages release smoke, odor in US state buildings
• Annapolis(US): State officials initially said the packages exploded, but now say there were no blasts.
• Security increased for Asia Bibi after death threat
• Lahore: The government of Punjab government beefed up security for 45-year-old Asia Bibi in Sheikhupura jail, where she is currently on death row, officials said.

 Business

• Visa on Arrival scheme drew 6,549 foreigners
• New Delhi: The VoA scheme was introduced on January 1, 2010 for citizens of five countries - Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore.
• Godrej to up product prices on rising input costs
• Mumbai: "I think inflation in commodities is very strong. I think it will lead to price increases in finished products," the company''s Chairman Adi Godrej told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
• Market witnesses catastrophe, Nifty drops 2.38 pc
• Mumbai: The 50-share index opened 6,030.90 and touched an intra-day low of 5,883.60 before closing the session at 5,904.60, down 143.65 points, or 2.38 per cent over its previous close.
• Air India clears proposal to induct on lease 8 Boeing
• Mumbai: The decision was taken at a meeting of the Air India Board here this evening.
• Jet wide-body aircraft on Delhi-Mumbai route
• New Delhi: "From this summer schedule, we are planning to launch wide-bodied Airbus 330 aircraft on some trunk routes like Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Chennai," P K Sinha, Vice President, International Relations and Industry Affairs of Jet Airways said today.
• Loss of Rs 1.5 lakh crore also presumptive: Arun
• New Delhi: Shourie, who served the ministry in 2003, defended the change in policy by the NDA government saying if the shift had not come about, the whole sector would have collapsed.
• Sony Entertainment inks pact with Apalya
• New Delhi: Shows from two of MSM''s GECs - Sony Entertainment Television (SET) and SAB TV will now be available on the Apalya mobile TV platform, Apalya said in a statement.
• Steel giants may jointly bid for Afghan mines
• New Delhi: The war-torn country has invited an Expression of Interest (EoI) to develop the mine, which it said is a part of huge "proven" reserves worth an estimated USD 3 trillion.
• RBI has headroom for rate hike: Sen
• Kolkata: "There is some headroom left for rate hike by RBI of about 50 basis points, if we consider the interest rates of pre-crisis period," Principal Advisor to the Planning Commission Pronab Sen said on the sidelines of Intaglio, 2011 organised by students of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
• Army deployed in S Lanka against pricey vegetables
• Colombo: The Army has opened a chain of 14 food stores in the capital and suburbs to sell vegetables at low prices, the Lankan Defence Ministry said here today.
• Citi fraud: Funds flowed to real estate sector too
• Gurgaon: Investigations into the fraud have revealed that Puri invested a part of the funds in property, police sources said, adding that the amount was small, compared to the money that went into the stock market.
• FM hopes for robust farm growth at 6 pc
• New Delhi: "In the current year with normal monsoons, we are looking at a significant rebound in agriculture and allied sector growth at about 6 per cent," an official statement said.
• Oilmeals exports rise by 93 pc in Dec
• New Delhi: "The export during December 2010 is reported at 7,65,954 tonnes compared to 3,95,663 tonnes in December 2009, up by 93 per cent," Solvent Extractors'' Association of India today said in a statement.
• Agri economist for tightening of monetary policy
• New Delhi: "There is excess liquidity in the system and that needs to be tightened," Gulati said after a delegation of economists and farmers'' bodies met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for pre-Budget consultations.
• 'Govt to finalise NHAI Chairman by end of this month'
• New Delhi: "A search committee under the Cabinet Secretary (K M Chandrasekhar) is looking into the matter, as soon as they finalise any name, they would go to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet for approval," Nath said, adding that by the end of the month it would be clear.
• Euro zone growth down to 0.3 pc in Sept qtr
• London: The euro area - comprising 16 countries that share the common currency euro - had recorded healthy economic growth of 1 per cent in the June quarter last year.
• Nabard launches Rs 25,019 cr credit plan for Orissa
• Bhubaneswar: The credit plan was launched by state Finance Minister Prafulla Ghadai at the state level credit seminar here. While annual credit plan for the state during the current fiscal is Rs 16,915 crore, it was increased by 48 per cent for 2011-12.
• Vegetable traders come under IT scanner in TN
• Chennai: "In this operation, ten big vegetable traders are covered and they are being questioned about the profit earned in their business especially due to increase in prices and investments made by them in the recent times," S Ravichandran, Additional Director, I-T (Investigation), Chennai, said.
• Everest Ind to set up Rs 50 cr plant in Orissa
• Chandigarh: Spread over 20 acres of land, the new plant, which will be the company''s sixth facility, would have a total capacity of 1.80 lakh tonne of fibre cement and steel fabrication.
• Govt may not raise taxes, try to streamline int tax
• New Delhi: Rising inflation is not only hitting the common man, but will also make the task of the government to increase its tax-GDP ratio difficult, sources said.
• Sensex falls 493 pts; dips below the crucial 20k level
• Mumbai: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex, which lost 375 points in last three sessions, plunged by another 492.93 points to 19,691.81, the lowest since December 15.
• Nasscom expresses concern on AP unrest
• New Delhi: "Andhra Pradesh has made a huge investment in its infrastructure for promoting IT business in the state and we don''''t want this to be hampered because of demonstrations and bandhs," Nasscom President Som Mittal told PTI.
• JKIL approves Golden hand shake of 900 employees
• Jammu: The Board of Directors of Jammu and Kashmir Industries Limited (JKI) which met under the chairmanship of Minister for Industries and Commerce S S Slathia gave its consent for revival of various units of the Corporation and approved Golden Hand Shake (GHS) cases of 900 employees employees of its various units.
• Hospitality scheme for tour operators, int'l journos
• Chennai: "They can visit whichever place they want to and the government will take care of transport and five-star hotel accomodation for them," Tourism Ministry Regional Director (south zone) Sanjay Shreevats told reporters here.
• IT dept plans new measures to curb tax evasion
• New Delhi: The department is also mooting developing a "criminal investigation" system within its establishment to combat terror financing, money laundering, offshore tax evasion and other illegal trades which impact national security.
• Spencer's Retail to open around 20 hyper marts
• Kolkata: The investment would be around Rs 80 crore to Rs 90 crore and the company is still looking for an investor to raise funds, Spencer President Vineet Kapila said.
• Star Health eyes Rs 1500-cr premium collection
• Mumbai: "There is a huge potential in the health insurance segment as there are very few players. We being one of the leaders in the segment, we expect Rs 1500-crore premium collection by FY 11," the company''s Zonal Manager, R S Nayak, told reporters here.
• Tata Steel forges JV with Nippon Steel
• New Delhi: The project is expected to be operational in three years time.
• Efforts on to persuade Pak to release onion
• New Delhi: "We have initiated talks and before not too long we are hopeful that we will find solution to this...," External Affairs Minister S M Krishna told reporters here today.
• Sensitive items' import up by 15.8 pc in April-Sept
• New Delhi: Foodgrains'' import soared to Rs 190.8 crore during the first six months of this fiscal from mere Rs 8.4 crore and in the year-ago period, according to the latest official data.
• Big Bazaar expects 10 pc growth during World Cup
• Mumbai: Big Bazaar has bagged the licence from ICC to be the authorised retailer of special merchandise for the World Cup 2011.
• Malaysia to collaborate with India on infrastructure
• Vellu, Malaysia''s special envoy, with ministerial rank, on infrastructure to India and South Asia, told PTI that Malaysian highway toll company PLUS is going to have a joint venture with Nagarjuna company in Hyderabad and would together go for a tender in Andhra Pradesh.
• Citi seeks suitors for CitiFinancial, says report
• New York: British daily Financial Times has reported the deal would also mark " a milestone in the bank''s efforts to break with its troubled past".
• 'Paper demand may cross 20 mn tonnes by 2020'
• New Delhi: "The paper demand is expected to cross the 20 million tons mark by 2020. The major constraint in capacity enhancement that the industry faces is related to raw material shortfall," IPMA President M L Pachisia said.
• Govt starts anti-dumping probe into aniline imports
• New Delhi: The Commerce Ministry''s designated authority, the Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD), has started an investigation into alleged dumping of the chemical, also used in dyes and rubber industry, on the basis of an application filed by Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilisers Company Ltd and supported by Hindustan Organic Chemicals.
• Gold, silver continue to slide on weak global cues
• New Delhi: While gold fell by Rs 100 to Rs 20,560 per 10 grams in continuation to a loss of Rs 340 in the last two sessions, silver lost Rs 600 to Rs 44,700 per kg, after dropping Rs 1,630 in last three days.
• Traders stop vegetable supply to Pak via land route
• Chandigarh: This decision was taken today collectively by about 40 vegetables exporters based at Amritsar.
• Sebi begins finalising bourses' ownership, governance rules
• New Delhi: A synopsis of the feedback on the recommendations is likely to be placed before the Sebi board in its next meeting, but a final decision is not likely soon.
• TN to become power surplus by next year: Governor
• Chennai: "By the end of the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12), the demand for electricity is estimated to be around 14,224 mw and the generation expected to be at 16,425 mw. Thus, Tamil Nadu will become a power surplus state in the year 2012," Governor Surjit Singh Barnala said in his address to the Assembly.
• IT dept swoops down on 'commodity hoarders'
• Chandigarh: "The survey operations, which commenced yesterday, are primarily aimed to check profiteering made by hoarders of vegetables," a senior official of Income Tax Department (Investigation Wing) said here today.
• Aravali Infrapower gears up for IPO next month
• New Delhi: "We hope to hit the market in February, next month, if the market conditions are good...we filed the DRHP (Draft Red Herring Prospectus) in September, 2010," Aravali Infrapower CMD Rakesh Jolly told PTI in a telephonic interview.
• Pak businessmen deplore onion export ban to India
• Lahore: ?Such decisions hamper trade between the two countries and cause wastage of perishable goods.
• IMF asks Pakistan to cut energy subsidies
• Terming the energy subsidies as "inefficient and untargeted," IMF spokeswoman Caroline Atkinson said these subsidies were consuming a large part of the country''s budget.
• Sara Lee likely to split into two businesses: Report
• New York: "Sara Lee Corp is moving ahead with plans to split up its meats and coffee businesses into two separate companies," The Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter.
• SEBI warns investors of two Sahara group companies
• Mumbai: The regulator, in a public notice, said investors of Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd (SHICL) should take investment decision at their own risk.
• NABARD to streamline micro credit
• Thiruvananthapuram: JLs are informal groups of even 4-10 individuals joining together to avail bank loans through group mechanisms against mutual guarantee.
• SBI refuses to facilitate payment, Iran oil import hit
• New Delhi: Sources said SBI is wary that it might be hit by the US sanctions for facilitating payments for Iranian imports.
• Rupee drops by 14 paise against dollar at 1145 hrs
• Mumbai: At the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the domestic unit opened lower at Rs 45.40/41 a dollar from overnight close of 45.2450/2550 and dropped further to 45.45 per dollar before quoting at 45.38 at 1145 hrs.
• Capital controls measures valuable for India, Brazil: IMF
• Washington: "Capital control are a little bit in the eye of the beholder, but it is certainly a part of the toolkit," said IMF spokesperson Caroline Atkinson at a news briefing.
• Sensex slides again, down 57 points in opening trade
• Mumbai: The 30-share barometer of the BSE fell by 57.14 points to 20,127.60 level in the opening trade. The Sensex had lost over 375 points in the past three trading sessions.
• Oil rises to near USD 89 ahead of key US jobs report

• Singapore: Benchmark oil for February delivery rose 47 cents to USD 88.85 a barrel midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost USD 1.92 to settle at USD 88.38 yesterday.

 Sports

• Films to keep Paes busy after retirement
• Chennai: "I cannot go on entertaining people with my tennis as age catches up. So I am now taking up a new career in film. I had signed up to act in four films to remain active after tennis," the 37-year old Paes said at a feliciation function here today.
• Tendulkar, Kallis share number-one batting spot
• Dubai: Tendulkar, who scored 146 and 14 not out in the Cape Town Test has gained one place while Kallis has been rewarded with a jump of four places for his brilliant efforts of 161 and 109 not out. Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara has dropped two places to be third in the rankings.
• Malisse storms into Chennai Open semis
• Chennai: Malisse, who won the singles title here in 2007, will meet the winner of another quarterfinal match between sixth seed Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia and Japanese sensation Kei Nishikori.
• Ignored Kaneria files letter to PCB
• Karachi: Kaneria, through his London-based lawyer, Stephen Hourigan, asked the PCB to fix up a meeting and sort out the issue of him getting a clearance to play for the national team.
• IPL snub disappoints Razzaq ahead of auction
• Karachi: Although many Pakistani players have played in the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League, Razzaq is yet to make an appearance in the cash-rich tournament as he was associated with the unofficial Indian Cricket League in 2008.
• India, SA players will be keeping an eye on auctions
• The high-profile two-day auction for the fourth edition of the IPL will feature many Indian players and it has kept the cricketers glued to the news emerging back home.
• Railways' Habib beat Reddy to enter main draw
• Mumbai: Habib rallied from a 1-2 deficit to pull off a 72-19 13-73 29-66 78-32 49-27 61-26 victory to enter the main draw by reaching the semifinals of the qualifiers.
• 'Bhutia not yet ruled out, rules unclear to make him official'
• Doha: To make matters worse, Bhutia''''s name was not included in the 23-member Indian squad initially issued by Asian Football Confederation on its website.
• England's Kieswetter ruled out of Twenty20s
• London: The England and Wales Cricket Board says the surgery is only minor and that Kieswetter will be fit for this month''s second-string England Lions tour of the West Indies.
• Rare solar storm to hit 2012 London Olympics
• London: The severe space storm could devastate communication satellites and cause power failure across England and could hit the Games hard, the Daily Mail reported.
• Chowrasia shoots 74 in first round at Africa Open
• After negotiating the first eight holes of the par-73 East London Golf Club course with one birdie on the sixth and one bogey on the fifth, Chowrasia birdied the ninth.
• Zuma is chief guest during Sunday's T20 match
• Johannesburg: During the sell-out game, which will also be Makhaya Ntini''s swansong international match, Zuma will honour four people - two South Africans and two Indians - for their outstanding efforts in strengthening the relationship between the two countries, Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief executive Gerald Majola said.
• Could have been back in F1 last year: Karthikeyan
• Karthikeyan, the first Indian Formula One driver, yesterday announced his deal with HRT, ending a six-year wait to get into the elite motorsport competition.
• British PM hails 'fantastic' Ashes win
• London: Cameron said he had called captain Andrew Strauss to congratulate him after England emphatically wrapped up victory on the last day of the final Test in Sydney for their first series victory Down Under since 1986-87.
• Australia need Steve Waugh as coach, says Jones
• Melbourne: In an indirect attack on current coach Tim Nielsen, Jones said the Board should not give the serious job of coaching to those who do not have any experience of playing Test cricket.
• Cricket Australia to review failed Ashes campaign
• Sydney: Acting skipper Michael Clarke said Australian cricket had hit rock-bottom after his team crashed to an unprecedented third innings defeat to England to lose their second consecutive Ashes series.
• Sushil appointed coach of MP Martial Arts Academy
• Bhopal: The bronze medallist of the Beijing Olympics took over his new assignment yesterday evening at a function at the Martial Art hall in T T Nagar stadium.
• Legends Kallis, Tendulkar rule the stats books
• Cape Town: Tendulkar hit a total of 326 runs at an average of 81.50 in three matches with a highest of 146.
• Auction set to mark fresh beginning for scam-hit IPL
• Bangalore: The highly successful tournament, which has been a money spinner for the BCCI, is set to feature 10 teams and a whopping 74 matches this season starting April 8 - just six days after the ODI World Cup in the sub-continent.
• England's 'Barmy Army' take battle honours
• Sydney: For the fifth day of the final Test, free entry was on offer to the Sydney Cricket Ground. But after four days of capacity crowds, locals had no interest in watching England clinch their first series victory in Australia in 24 years.
• New Zealand 260-7 in first test against Pakistan
• Hamilton: Left-arm spinner Abdur Rehman took three wickets to help reduce New Zealand to 177-7 after sending the home team in today, but Southee (56 not out) and Kane Williamson (44 not out) then combined for an unbeaten 83-run stand.
• India continue to be No.1 in the ICC Test rankings
• Dubai: India lead South Africa by 11 ratings with 128 ratings points, the ICC said in a statement here.
• Future Ind-SA Test series may get icon status: Majola
• Johannesburg: The Proteas and India drew their third successive Test series (two in India and one in South Africa) to underline the exciting new rivalry they have brought to the world of Test match cricket.
• Saker signs up for three more years with England
• Sydney: England''s announcement today came after it retained the Ashes with a dominating run in Australia, with the fast bowlers playing a large role in that.
• Cameron White named Australia''s T20 captain
• Melbourne: "Cameron White has been named as captain of a 12-man squad for the KFC Twenty20 International series against England, with Tim Paine as his vice," Cricket Australia said in a statement.
• England victory is start of dominant era, says press
• London: As a demoralised Australia limped off the field after England scored their third innings win over the home team in the final Sydney Test, joy broke out in papers in England as the scale of their team''s victory dawned on them.
• Aussie media slam 'worst ever' team
• Sydney: "Our Worst XI," headlined the Sydney Morning Herald, as Australia started the final day at 228 for seven in their second innings, still 151 behind England''s record first innings of 644.
• Michael Clarke quits T20 after Ashes debacle
• Sydney: Australia lost the Ashes 1-3 after going down by an innings and 83 runs in the fifth and final Test here today.
• Andrew Strauss toasts 'special' Eng series triumph
• Sydney: England wrapped up an innings and 83-run victory early on the last day in Sydney for their first series victory Down Under since Mike Gatting''''''''s team mastered Australia 2-1 in 1986-87.
• Miserly Pakistan dominate 2nd session against NZ
• New Zealand added only 82 runs in the two hours of play as Abdur Rehman put the brakes on the scoring with a miserly spell of spin bowling to give him two for 32 off 16 overs.
• Inter beats Napoli 3-1 in Leonardo's debut
• Rome: Leonardo replaced Rafa Benitez over the Italian league''s holiday break and yesterday''s victory was Inter''s first in Serie A since November. Perhaps more importantly, Inter showed the same flare and goalscoring ability it had last season en route to a historic treble.
• Villarreal, Madrid, Atletico reach cup quarters
• Madrid: Marco Ruben''s 63rd-minute strike yesterday ensured Villarreal advanced after a scoreless first leg. Ruben tapped into an open goal after Cani''s one-two with Giuseppe Rossi put him clear into the area to find Ruben alone in the center.
• Cricket: England crush Australia to take Ashes series
• Sydney: England wrapped up an innings and 83-run victory early on the last day after victory was assured when they had Australia seven wickets down on Thursday''s close.
• Bopanna-Qureshi give credit to conquerors after defeat
• Synopsis of the story is not available

08.01.2011 

National

• 2G spectrum case: 'Sibal's stand bizarre and flawed'
• Bangalore: Terming as bizarre Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal stand in the 2G allocation, CPI-M today said it appeared to be "a cover-up exercise" to shield beneficiaries of the scam.
• Govt promises to give PIOs life-long visa-free entry
• New Delhi: Singh said the government had decided to merge the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) and the Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) cards into a single facility.
• North faces another frosty day; death toll reaches 68
• New Delhi: While three persons died in UP''s Shahjahanpur district, two deaths were reported from Bareilly and one from Basti.
• NDA govt gave green nod to Akshardham temple: CM
• New Delhi: "I do not know in what context Ramesh spoke. However, the decision to give the clearance was taken by the then NDA government and the permission was given by the authorities," Dikshit told reporters here.
• 'Gujarat development structure not acceptable for Kerala'
• Thrissur (Ker): "The state''''s precious land would not be left for the real estate dealers in the name of development," the CPI-M veteran said inaugurating the second phase of development of the Thrissur infopark at nearby Koratty near here.
• EC concerned over law and order situation in Bengal
• Kolkata: "Of course, we are concerned very much," Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi told a press conference here when asked whether EC was concerned over the law and order in the state.
• Gadkari lauds Nitish's contribution to NDA win in Bihar
• Guwahati: Noting that the importance of the BJP victory in the state was not a small success, he told the party''s National Executive here that the strike rate of 89 per cent is a historic feat in the annals of India''s electoral history.
• Cong says Sibal has right to comment on CAG report
• New Delhi: "I do not think he was undermining the authority of any constitutional body. He as a minister has the relevant papers.
• HM for efforts from public & pvt sector in education
• Chennai: Private initiatives should complement public initiatives so that every child is enrolled (in schools) and gets eight to ten years of education, he said in his address at the silver jubilee celebrations of Chettinad Vidyashram here.
• Delhi gets coldest on weekend; max drops to lowest
• New Delhi: The citizens wrapped themselves in extra layers of wollens as they woke up to a chilly morning with night temperatures sliding to a low of 4.3 degree Celsius, the same as yesterday, and a dense fog cover adding to their woes.
• Indo-French naval exercises begin off Goa coast
• The French Navy has its newly inducted FNS Forbin destroyer as a part of its Carrier Strike Group, led by aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle.
• 'World Bank team to submit report on Sunderbans'
• Canning (WB): "After we signed an agreement with World Bank, a team had visited Sunderbans for five times to assess the present ecological situation and met me twice in Kolkata," he told a gathering while inaugurating a bridge in the riverine belt.
• 5 kg RDX recovered from militant hideout in Poonch
• Poonch (J&K): On specific information, 37 Rashtriya Rifles troops and Special Operation Group of Police raided the hideout in Chatral-Mendhar, about 160-kms from Jammu, in the border district, they said.
• NC asks India, Pakistan leaders to begin peace talks
• Srinagar: "The bitter relations between India and Pakistan directly affect the people of Kashmir," Beig, Lok Sabha member from south Kashmir, said in a statement.
• Fog disrupts flight operations at IGI Airport
• New Delhi: "Most of the flights operated on time but schedule of about 35 domestic and five international flights were affected while a cargo flight of Blue Dart (BZ 304) from Ahmedabad was diverted back to its origin station early in the morning," an airport official said.
• Four arrested for lodging false case against SP MLA
• Lucknow: On January 6, Eram Khatoon lodged an FIR at Kotwali police station of Sultanpur city that her granddaughter five-year-old Sanobar was kidnapped by three unidentified persons, they said.
• Mother and daughter hacked to death in UP village
• Lucknow: Guddi Singh (40) and her daughter Puja (16) were attacked with a sharp-edged weapon and killed at Piparipur village late last night, they said.
• Uttar Pradesh tops among states in ragging incidents
• Muzaffarnagar: Replying to a query under the Right to Information Act filed by Kush Kalra, the Human Resource Development Ministry said that after UP, West Bengal reported the second highest number of 86 cases.
• Women organisations flay Modi for terming Rupam 'blackmailer'
• Patna: The organisations under the banner of Bihar Women''s Network and All India Mahila Sanskritik Manch (AIMSS) blocked the busy Dakbunglow for over an hour and raised anti-government and anti-Modi slogans for allegedly trying to scuttle a CBI probe into the incident.
• Goods worth Rs 30 lakh destroyed, fireman hurt in fire
• Ghaziabad: Goods worth over Rs 30 lakh were destroyed and a fireman identified as Surender Singh sustained injuries while trying to douse the fire that broke out in the shop due to an electrical short-circuit, they said.
• Liquid explosive found at Maoist camp in Orissa
• Malkangiri (Orissa): Personnel of elite anti-Maoist force Special Operation Group (SOG) and District Voluntary Police (DVP) during a joint operation detected a Maoist camp inside Kathabaunsaguda forest under Mithili police station and found the explosives, Malkangiri SP Anirudha Singh said.
• Six more die due to cold in UP; death toll rises to 68
• Lucknow: While three persons died in Shahjahanpur district, two deaths were reported from Bareilly and one from Basti district in the last 24 hours, official sources said here.
• Teacher arrested for removing girl student's veil
• Ranchi: Trouble started when a local newspaper published the photographs in sequence showing how the teacher removed the girl''s veil to identify her during a students'' protest on Friday demanding that they be allowed to fill up forms for intermediate examinations.
• LF chief whip admits CPI(M) men had arms
• Burdwan (WB): "They were homeless CPI(M) supporters, who had taken shelter in that house. They had arms, but it was for self-defence," Masih told reporters here in Burdwan district.
• CPI(M) and Trinamool cross swords before EC
• Kolkata: CPI(M) representative Rabin Deb alleged before the full commission headed by Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi that Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, was making false allegations against CPI(M) and the West Bengal government to disturb the polls.
• TDP for withdrawal of central forces from Telangana
• Hyderabad: A delegation of TDP MLAs from Telangana met Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy at his office this afternoon and said the presence of para-military forces on OU campus was adding to the tension and demanded their withdrawal.
• HC notice on illegal constructions near Raj Bhavan
• Jaipur: Taking cognisance of a petition field by residents of Hari Marg, Civil Lines Colony, Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari issued show cause notices to Secretary UDH, Chief Executive Officer Jaipur Municipal Corporation and Commissioner JDA.
• Congress blocks traffic; TC holds condemnation day
• Kolkata: Road blocks were put up at the busy E M Bypass, C R Avenue, Dharamtolla, Moulali and Bowbazar disrupting traffic.
• 'Role of institutions fostering militancy be probed'
• New Delhi: "I know very well the kind of training given by some of the institutions in our own country which make a person militant. Ultimately he can become a human bomb. And that is a thing we seriously need to look into...the issue is how terrorism is born in our country and spread," he told reporters here.
• 'Declare unseasonal rains in Orissa as national calamity'
• Berhampur (Orissa): "As the extent of damage to crop was extensive in all the three states during harvest, the Centre should treat it as a national calamity," CPI general secretary A B Bardhan said at a party meeting in Ganjam district headquarters Chhatrapur.
• Bihar Deputy CM for CBI probe into MLA murder case
• Patna: "Though the Bihar police is competent enough to carry forward the investigation, it will be better to hand it over to CBI," Modi said in a letter to Kumar before leaving for Guwahati to attend the national executive meeting of the BJP.
• 'Nothing new in Abdullah's statement on displaced KPs'
• Jammu: "It (Farooq Abdullah''s statement) has only opened up the raw wounds of the Pandits of Kashmir, reminding them of the atrocities inflicted upon them in Kashmir," Panun Kashmir President Ashwani Chrungoo said.
• Nothing wrong in Sibal criticising CAG, says Congress
• New Delhi: "CAG report is for scrutiny. Any MP or minister can raise question mark on CAG report based on the latter''s findings. If Sibal has said something based on documents, we do not think it is wrong on his part," party spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed told PTI.
• New Human Resource policy for Prasar Bharti soon
• Chennai: "New recruitment rules and service conditions and a human resource policy for the employees would be out in another three-four months," Prasar Bharati Member, Personnel, V Shivakumar said.
• MNS gets Shiv Sena's support on MLA assault case
• Mumbai: "Policemen mercilessly beat up Harshavardhan Jadhav as if he was a robber. Police did not verify whether he was a people''s representative. Such policemen should be deployed in Naxal areas," Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray told reporters at Sena Bhawan here.
• 'Top 22 commanders of militant outfits killed in JK'
• Jammu: "Police and security forces have killed 22 top commanders, including eight foreign terrorists, in J&K in 2010," Director General of Police Kuldeep Khoda told PTI.
• Cold wave: Delhi government extends school holidays
• New Delhi: In effect, the schools will be closed till January 14, which is a holiday for the ''''Lohri'''' festival.
• Dikshit sidesteps Ramesh's remarks on Akshardham
• New Delhi: "I do not know in what context Ramesh spoke. However, the decision to give the clearance was taken by the then NDA government and the permission was given by the authorities," Dikshit told reporters here.
• Mamata consoles bereaved families at Netai village
• Netai (WB): Banerjee told the villagers that it was commendable the way in which they had resisted CPI(M) cadre without arms and said they should guard their villagers themselves.
• Committee on TRP sys to soon submit report to Soni
• New Delhi: The committee, headed by Dr Amit Mitra, Secretary General FICCI, was constituted in May to review the existing system in India and suggest measures to bring in place an effective mechanism for a transparent TRP system.
• Prime Minister announces merging of OCI, PIO cards
• New Delhi: Singh also said that the government had decided to extended the facility of the Indian Community Welfare Fund to all the Indian Missions from the current 42.
• 10 fishermen held by Pak Marine agency; 4 boats seized
• Ahmedabad: "The Pakistani agency arrested the fishermen yesterday and seized four fishing boats belonging to Porbandar," National Fish Forum Secretary Manish Lodhari said.
• 'Binayak sentence looks like miscarriage of justice'
• New Delhi: Sen also hoped that the judgement convicting Binayak, who has been awarded life term by a Chhattisgarh court for "sedition" and colluding with Maoists, will not "survive" the challenge made to the higher courts of the country.
• Central Excise official caught taking Rs 1 crore bribe
• Pune: "Acting on a tip-off, a trap was laid and K B Mahadik, a superintendent in the Central Excise and Customs department, was caught while accepting the bribe from the businessman yesterday," CBI Joint Director Rishiraj Singh said.
• 'Talks on for defence contracts worth USD 8-bn' 
• Hyderabad: The defence equipment manufacturing industry is engaged in talks with overseas firms for contracts worth more than USD-8 bn, MoS for Defence, M M Pallam Raju said today.
• Nagpur youth sings for more than 93 hrs; hospitalised
• Nagpur: Waghmare had set a target of 101 hours of continuous singing but was forced to stop after doctors attending on him found him unfit for further singing yesterday, as his physical condition deteriorated.
• Kerala government makes change in its emblem
• Thiruvananthapuram: The changes, as per the recommendation of a committee that looked into the issue, were made to make the state emblem in tune with the national emblem as the Government of India uses the phrase ''Satyameva Jayate'' below the four lions standing back-to-back, an official release said.
• Kerala Govt seeks meeting of state Food Ministers
• Thiruvananthapuram: State Food Minister C Divakaran said food inflation had broken all records and the situation was likely to be grim in coming days.
• Sonia asks Union Ministers,CMs to give up discretionary powers
• New Delhi: Gandhi today also held a meeting of party general secretaries and asked them to start preparations to hold block level campaigns against NDA on the issue of corruption.
• Heptulla confident of minority vote for BJP in Assam
• Guwahati: "When development takes place it does not ignore minorities but covers people from all communities," she told reporters here on the sidelines of the two-day BJP national executive committee meeting which began here today.
• Chiefs of Army, Air Force to appear before PAC
• New Delhi: Accordingly, the PAC has been informed that Army chief General V K Singh and Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal P V Naik would be appearing before it, they said.
• Left flays SC order banning road-side meetings
• Thiruvananthapuram: The Court order amounted to "breach" of democratic and Constitutional privileges like freedom of expression, the CPI-M, which heads the ruling LDF, said.
• Swamy slams Sibal's remarks on CAG projection of 2G loss
• New Delhi: Swamy said the court should take suo motu notice of the contempt of court committed by the Minister, who made statements about the case when the Supreme Court had passed an order directing the CBI to report to it.
• Rahul Gandhi on 2-day visit to UP from Jan 10
• Lucknow: The AICC general secretary will be visiting five districts - Lucknow, Allahabad, Jhansi, Agra and Varanasi during his two day visit, state president of National Student Union of India (NSUI) Rahul Rai said.
• Advisory to Meghalaya politicians travelling to Assam
• Shillong: "The MLAs and politicians of Meghalaya are strongly advised not to travel to Assam without prior permission from the administration under any circumstances. Travel from Garo Hills to Guwahati and Shillong through Assam has been strongly advised against," the East Garo Hills administration informed after taking the decision last night.
• Joshi criticises Sibal for debunking CAG figures
• Guwahati: Joshi said Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar had appeared before the PAC but never questioned the CAG''s projection of presumptive losses.
• BJP national executive meeting begins in Guwahati
• Guwahati: The two-day meet, held in the North-East for the first time, was inaugurated by party president Nitin Gadkari in the presence of senior leaders L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley.
• 2nd phase of census to begin from March 9: RGCCI
• Jammu: About 30,000 employees of Jammu and Kashmir are being trained to conduct the second phase of the Census in the state, he said.
• Now, you can control comp commands by thought
• Mumbai: Acting as an interface designed to translate what happens in the brain into a computer command, this software -''''OpenViBE''''- is the outcome of a project initiated in 2005 and has a multitude of potential applications.
• Toll eight, curfew relaxed during day in Meghalaya
• Shillong: A body was recovered on the Assam side yesterday, official sources said, adding a number of abandoned houses were burnt down in the Adolgre area along the border last night.
• Court issues NBW against 19 AIADMK leaders
• Madurai: Judicial Magistrate of Tirumangalam near here issued the warrants against Panneerselvam, former ministers K A Sengottaiyan and Pollachi Jayaraman and 17 others yesterday.
• Goods train derails in Bihar, rail traffic disrupted
• Bhabua(Bihar): Around 19 wagons of a goods train laden with coal derailed as the train reached Muthani station in Bihar''s Kaimur district early this morning, railway sources said.
• Woman associate of Hizb commander arrested
• Jammu: Acting on the interrogation inputs of Hizb Divisional Commander Gulam Nabi Sheikh alais Javaid Qureshi, police team raided a house in Sirwal-Behota village of Marmat belt in Doda district last evening and arrested Yasmeena Banoo, Deputy Inspector General Ramban-Kishtwar-Doda Maneesh Sinha said.
• Fog disrupts train services, 100 trains delayed
• New Delhi: Northern Railway officials said in view of the dense fog in many areas of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, train traffic has been disrupted.
• Cold wave continues to sweep national capital
• New Delhi: A thick layer of fog engulfed the city this morning even as the cold wave continued unabated leaving Delhiites shivering and disrupting flight operations.
• Fog disrupts flight operations at IGI in Delhi
• New Delhi: A cargo flight was diverted while schedule of several others were affected this morning, an airport official said.
• HC admits Binayak's appeal against life sentence
• Bilaspur: After preliminary hearing, division bench of Justices T P Sharma and Justice R L Jhanwar asked the trial court to submit the case diary and deferred hearing on the case to January 24.
• Ex-Medical Education Director of C'garh held
• Raipur: Former top official S L Adile was apprehended from Golbazaar area of the city, ASP Lal Umed Singh told PTI.

International

• Qaeda plotting Mumbai-style terror attack in UK
• London: British security agency are also monitoring all planes flying through the UK to destinations to the US and mainland Europe as part of the terrorist threat, media report said.
• Kanishka bombing: Inderjit Reyat gets 9 years in jail
• Toronto:  Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only man convicted in 1985 AI bombing, has been sentenced to 9 years in jail by a Canadian court for perjury at the trial of his 2 co-accused conspirators.
• Krishna arrives in Kabul; to meet top Afghan leaders
• Kabul: External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, who arrived here today on a two-day visit, will hold talks with Afghan leadership during which he will also discuss security of Indian nationals and reiterate India''s commitment for the reconstruction of the war-torn country.
• 2 held  for influencing Qadri kill Pak Punjab Governor
• The suspects were picked up from Lahore and Rawalpindi after investigators scrutinised Qadri''s mobile phone records, media reports quoted officials as saying.
• Jail for sexual assault for Pakistan-origin gang leaders
• London: According to a report in The Times, 27-year-old Abid Siddique, a contract cleaner, and 28-year-old Mohammed Liaqat, who has a conviction for a racially motivated assault, presented themselves in the Pakistani community as family men and devout Muslims.
• Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries meet in Bhutan next month
• Pakistan will decide on accepting India''s standing invitation for Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to visit New Delhi after assessing the outcome of the meeting of the Foreign Secretaries in Thimphu in February, sources in the Pakistan government told PTI.
• Iran says can make own nuclear fuel plates and rods
• Tehran: Salehi, the driving force behind Iran''s contentious atomic programme, said the country has completed the construction of a facility in the central city of Isfahan to the fuel plates and rods which power nuclear reactors.
• Egypt's Grand Mufti on first ever visit to India
• Cairo: Gomaa, the current Mufti and one of the world''s most recognisable Muslim scholars, will deliver a special address at the conference which is being attended by Ulemas world over, Egyptian Ambassador Khaled al-Baqly said here. After attending the conference he will fly to New Delhi for talks with Vice President Hamid Ansari and Minister of New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah on Monday.
• Four killed in South Sudan attack ahead of referendum
• Juba (Sudan): Despite the attack, most officials predict the weeklong vote to go peacefully.
• School website turns a porno shocker in China
• Beijing: Porno pictures popped up when students High School in Feidong County clicked on their school''s website prompting the school officials to lodge a police complaint.
• India concerned over LTTE radio equipment: cable
• Colombo: The diplomatic cable leaked by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks said the government, headed by the prime minister Ranil Wickremasinghe in 2002, had requested assistance of the Royal Norwegian government, the facilitator of the troubled peace process, to import radio equipment for the LTTE''s radio "Voice of Tigers" during the ceasefire period.
• Third package ignites at Washington postal facility
• Washington: Authorities were bracing for more packages to surface.
• Governor wins rerun election in Nigeria's oil rich state
• Abuja: However, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who defeated his major opponent, Great Ogboru of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) by 275,253 to 138,244 votes will serve only the remaining of his court terminated tenure which ends in May.
• Radical Iraqi cleric urges resistance against America
• Najaf: Addressing an adoring crowd of thousands, Muqtada al-Sadr also called on the newly formed government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make sure all US forces leave Iraq by the end of the year as planned. And he warned that "we have the political means" to reject that government if it does not provide security and services to its citizens.
• Chile's recognition of Palestine useless, says Israel
• Jerusalem: "It is a useless and empty gesture because it will not change anything," the official said a day after Chile announced it has recognised Palestine as an independent state, in the footsteps of other Latin American countries.
• South separatists kill two Yemen troops: official
• Aden (Yemen): Militants from the Southern Movement opened fire on the checkpoint in the area of Al-Milah, close to the town of Habilayn which has been under the control of southern gunmen for weeks, the official told AFP.
• China to build tower similar to Dubai's Burj Khalifa
• Dubai: Graphics and planning of the ''seven-star'' hotel has already been completed and it will be situated at the end of Chang An avenue, which runs across the Chinese capital''s Tiananmen Square, according to the report.
• 'Perpetrators of Samjhauta blast be brought to justice'
• "It took almost four years for the Samjhauta Express investigations to come to this pass. We can only hope that no further time will be squandered in bringing the criminals to justice," Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told PTI in a text message.
• US demanding Twitter account information: Cables 
• London: In an e-mail statement, WikiLeaks said that US investigators had gone to the San Francisco-based Twitter Inc to demand the private messages, contact information, and other personal details of founder Julian Assange and three people associated with the secret-spilling website.
• Six perons dead in communist clashes in Philippines
• Manila: One soldier was killed in a battle with insurgents today while four rebels and one policeman died in a clash two days earlier in incidents in the southern Philippines, police and military spokesmen said.
• Pak court adjourns trial of 26/11 suspects till Jan 22
• Prosecution lawyers informed Judge Rana Nisar Ahmed of the Rawalpindi-based anti-terrorism court that they needed more time to withdraw the petition as it was yet to be listed by the Lahore High Court.
• Pak, Indian MPs call for efforts to remove trust deficit
• The lawmakers made the recommendation during the Pakistan-India Parliamentarians Dialogue organised by the NGO Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, yesterday.
• Two sects clash in Bangladesh over control of mosque
• At least 20 people were injured and 20 shops were set on fire in the clash between the followers of relatively hardliner Wahabi sect and Sunni group over the dominance of a mosque during Friday prayers, witnesses and officials said.
• Madhesi party withdraws its 4 ministers from Nepal govt
• However, the Terai Madhes Democratic Party (TMDP), which had a total of 20 seats in the 601-strong Constituent Assembly, said it would continue to support the ruling alliance from outside.
• China plans to allow private jets to fly in low-altitude
• Beijing: The Pinggu District administration is planning to open the airspace to amateur pilots, The Beijing Morning Post reported quoting Zheng Jifu, head of the district.
• Argentina: 1K workers found in sub-human conditions
• Buenos Aires: According to the report, the number is likely to increase, as police raided other facilities in the outskirts of Buenos Aires last Friday, in the wake of an alleged case of people trafficking.
• 'EU diplomats in Dhaka divided over war crimes trial'
• Dhaka: The difference of opinion surfaced among the diplomats about what public position the European Union should take on the adequacy of the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973, under which major Bengali-speaking suspects of the war crimes were being exposed to justice, The New Age newspaper said.
• Nepali airline's flights on Kathmandu-Lucknow route
• Kathmandu: Buddha Air''s 47 seater ATR-42 aircraft embarked on its inaugural flight to Lucknow yesterday. The private airline will fly to the Indian city three times a week on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the airlines sources said.
• Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries to meet in Bhutan
• Pakistan will decide on accepting India''s standing invitation for Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to visit New Delhi after assessing the outcome of the talks between the Foreign Secretaries in Thimphu on the margins of the SAARC meet, which is expected to be held in February, the sources in the Pakistan government told PTI.
• US to provide more military aid to Pakistan: report
• Washington: Vice-president Joseph Biden will deliver the message outlining the new aid package when he visits Pakistan next week, The ''Washington Post'' reported today.
• US ambassador expected in Syria this month
• Washington: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swore in Robert Ford yesterday, and her spokesman Philip Crowley said the new ambassador would be in Damascus "before the end of January." The United States withdrew its ambassador after the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in a massive car bomb that was widely blamed on Syria. Damascus has always denied the allegations.
• New Jersey police team cancels Gujarat visit
• Five police officers from New Jersey, the US state that has a sizeable population of Indian Americans, in particular those from Gujarat, were scheduled to leave for India this week for the ''Sardar Patel World Police Unity Tour'', a 115-mile bicycle ride in Gujarat that was scheduled for today.
• US concerned about increasing extremism in Pak
• Washington: "A civilian-led democratic government is integral to economic and social development," Crowley said when asked about the latest political development in Pakistan.
• 'Sino-India growth due to the 6-decade peace in Asia'
• "This extraordinary growth that we''ve witnessed and the dynamism in the Asia-Pacific region, and that of China and India in particular, has been made possible by 60 years of peace, stability and prosperity," said Michael Schiffer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia policy in his remarks at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
• Racy Catholic calendar angers Spain church leaders
• Sant Joan (Spain): The group has almost sold out of the 10-euro (USD 13) 2011 calendars and is considering another print run. But Mallorca''s Bishop Jesus Murgui is blasting the effort as showing disrespect for the most important Catholic date.
• 'US, India working to address hunger, poverty in world'
• "We''''re currently working with the Government of India to really bring the benefits of those programmes to other parts of the world," Raj Shah, Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said at a State Department news conference yesterday.
• N Korea reopens cooperation office, offers talk dates
• Seoul: In a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, it also said it would reopen an office for inter-Korean economic cooperation at the North''''s Kaesong City, which it shut down amid high tensions last year.
• Gunmen abduct two Frenchmen in Niger: witnesses
• Niamey: Two armed men burst into the restaurant, Le Toulousain, in the city centre, when it was crowded with diners and forced the two men to follow them, said staff and diners.
• US, Japan to continue close consultation on NKorea
• Washington: Visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara met US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon at the White House yesterday.
• EU charges former Kosovo rebels with war crimes
• Pristina: The former commander of the military police for the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Sabit Geci, 52, and Riza Alija, 50, were charged with "war crimes against (the) civilian population" committed in two KLA camps in neighbouring Albania, the indictment said.
• Israeli soldier killed in friendly fire at Gaza border
• Jerusalem: The soldiers were hit by friendly fire when more soldiers from the same battalion arrived at the scene to their aid, the Israeli army reported today.
• Envelope ignites at US post office
• Washington: "It''s a post office. They are characterizing it as an ignition, not an explosion at this point," Washington police officer Hugh Carew told AFP yesterday.
• WikiLeaks' Assange signs deal to tell life story
• London: Edinburgh-based Canongate Books said it had acquired world rights - apart from North America where the publisher will be Alfred A Knopf - to the whistleblower''s autobiography.
• Chile recognises Palestine as 'sovereign' state
• Santiago: "The government of Chile has adopted the resolution today recognising the existence of the state of Palestine as a free, independent and sovereign state," he said, reading a foreign ministry declaration.
• House takes first step toward health care repeal
• Washington: But the 236-181 largely party-line vote is unlikely to amount to more than a political message, since Democrats who still run the Senate have promised to block efforts to scrap the law and Obama has veto power.
• Russia ready to ratify US arms treaty: Kosachyov
• Moscow: Russia''s lower house of parliament gave preliminary approval to the treaty before the New Year''s holidays, but decided to delay a final vote to give the Russian side time to study the resolution passed by the US Senate when it ratified the pact last month.
• Red Cross emblem dropped from UK production
• London: Glasgow''s Pavilion Theatre had a nurse character in the pantomime show wearing a costume with red crosses on his hat and tunic, but changed the crosses from red to green after the British Red Cross objected.
• Obama names political veteran to top economic post
• Washington: Gene Sperling''s appointment as director of the National Economic Council coincided with the release of the December jobs report that showed the unemployment rate dropping to 9.4 per cent, its lowest level in nearly two years.
• UN rights chief sees warnings in religion attacks
• Geneva: In a statement a week after 21 people died in a bomb attack outside a Coptic church in Egypt, Pillay said states should act to promote religious tolerance and reduce such attacks in the long term.
• Investigators in US try to trace 2 fiery packages
• Baltimore: The package addressed to Gov Martin O''Malley was sent by someone griping about highway signs that urge motorists to call in tips about suspicious activity.
• Nigeria: Ruling party wins rerun state election
• Lagos: Officials with the Independent National Electoral Commission said Emmanuel Uduaghan, a candidate with the ruling People''s Democratic Party, clinched the vote yesterday in Delta state.
• NATO to deploy radar planes to Afghanistan
• Brussels: Allies reached an agreement for the "AWACS to begin their operations in Afghanistan in mid-January," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told AFP.

 Business

• Onion retail at Rs 65/kg, wholesale prices fall 
• New Delhi: Retail prices of onion continue to rule high at Rs 60-65 per kilogram in metros even as wholesale rates have declined following the nationwide tax raids on traders.
• More raids on onion traders by I-T deptt in the offing
• New Delhi: Department sources said they conducted survey operations on city-based premises of onion traders from neighbouring UP.
• BOI's 0.5 pc concession on loans to overseas Indians
• New Delhi: The concession has been made to woo the diaspora, members of which are participating in the three-day Pravasi Bhartiya Divas being held here.
• Gurgaon police estimates Citibank fraud at Rs 400 cr
• Gurgaon: In a report filed with the city court, the police said that Puri was a "educated and clever person" and had diverted funds of companies and individuals into an account jointly held by his relatives Premnath Puri, Diksha Puri and Shaila.
• Russia tightens imports from Germany amid dioxin scare
• Moscow: The Russian federal agriculture watchdog - Rosselkhoznadzor - has requested official information from Germany and EU on the probe and steps taken by them to prevent the highly toxic dioxin from entering the human food chain.
• Deora meets FM; seeks release 10K cr to oil cos soon
• Mumbai: "I met Mukherjee here and demanded that the government bear at least 55 per cent of the total under recoveries (the revenue state retailers lose on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost)," Deora told PTI after the meeting.
• Govt fund for covering risk of home loans to poor
• New Delhi: "Housing finance companies (HFCs) and banks hesitate to serve the low-income market for a variety of reasons such as inability to assess credit worthiness, uncertain cash flows and lower profits," she said while addressing the national convention of the National Real Estate Development Council.
• Shopping malls energy guzzlers, says Union Minister
• New Delhi: "Shopping malls are vulgar display of wealth and a vulgar wastage of energy and space," Minister of State for Urban Development Saugata Roy said at a seminar, agreeing with environmentalist R K Pachauri who also described the malls as "energy guzzlers".
• 'Sibal 2G remark to protect corporates' ill-gotten gains'
• New Delhi: "It is clear from Sibal''s defence that the UPA Government is far more deeply involved than just the lone acts of (former Telecom Minister) A Raja," the CPI(M) Politburo said, adding his "bizarre defence" of the 2G spectrum allocation once again underlined the need for a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate the issue.
• Kerala CM to inaugurate Chertalla Infopark
• Kochi: He would also inaugurate the second phase of the Infopark in Koratty, an official release said here today.
• Recovery in gold, silver on fresh buying, good demand
• Mumbai: Standard gold (99.5 per cent purity) gained Rs 130 per 10 grams to close at Rs 20,280 from Friday''s closing level of Rs 20,150.
• I-T surveys on Delhi premises of UP onion traders
• New Delhi: Sources said the surveys were carried out on the premises of those traders who were searched by the department in Uttar Pradesh yesterday.
• Citi case: Court extends Hero Group official's custody
• Gurgaon: Gupta, an Assistant Vice-President with Hero Group, allegedly invested about Rs 250 crore belonging to promoters of the Group and other companies through Shivraj Puri, the alleged mind of the scam.
• Tejas soon to be inducted into Indian Air Force
• Bangalore: "This is the first time that an indigenously designed and developed military fighter aircraft would be certified for Air Force operations," a Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) release said here.
• India exports grow highest in 33 months in December
• New Delhi: Exports in December aggregated USD 22.5 billion, while imports contracted by 11.1 per cent to USD 25.1 billion, resulting in a narrow trade deficit of USD 2.6 billion, the lowest in three years.
• 12th Plan: Govt hopes 30 pc infra spend from overseas
• New Delhi: "We aim to invest USD 1 trillion in the infrastructure sector in the 12th Plan Period. We hope 30 per cent of the proposed investment will come from various overseas funds," Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath told reporters on the sidelines of 9th Pravasi Bhartiya Divas here.
• 120 MSME's to participate in Ind Expo from Jan 20
• Indore: Organised by the MSME Development Institute, among others, the fair would see both public and private sector companies from across the country exhibiting their products and services.
• 'Proper infrastructure needed to attract investments'
• Rourkela: Inaugurating a two-day International Conference on "Electronic system", at National Institute of Technology (NIT) here today, WESC Chairman Vijay Prakash Saha underlined the need for a congenial atmosphere in the area in particular and in the country in general to attract the investors.
• China plans to build more electronic charging stations
• State Grid Corp of China (SGCC) plans to build more electric charging stations in Beijing and several other cities this year to meet rising demand for electric vehicles, official media reported today.
• 'Govt committed to take steps to moderate price rise'
• New Delhi: "We have to take all the necessary steps to keep inflation at moderate levels", he said while speaking at the 9th Pravasi Bhartiya Divas here.
• Gold prices recovers on local buying; silver still down
• New Delhi: However, silver remained under selling pressure and lost Rs 75 to Rs 44,625 per kg.
• Pak yet to decide on resuming onion export to India
• Islamabad: Pakistan is yet to decide on India's request for resumption of onion exports through Wagah border after it was banned earlier this week to stabilise prices in domestic markets.
• Sugar closes lower on reduce offtake, ample supply
• New Delhi: Market analysts said, fall in demand, amid increased supply from mills, brought down the sugar prices.
• India-Oman Oil refinery likely to be inaugurated
• Sagar (MP): Although the production has begun, the formal inauguration is yet to be done, the sources said.
• Wholesale onion prices decline by Rs 3 in Delhi
• New Delhi: "Arrival of onions are increasing from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. As a result, prices have come down by Rs 3 per kg from yesterday''s level," General Secretary of Tomato and Onion Merchant Association (based in Delhi''s Azadpur mandi) Rajendra Sharma told PTI.
• Moong dal and gram dal went up, sugar decline
• Chennai: Moong dal moved up by Rs 100 on Thursday at Rs 6,600 and ended at the same rate today over its previous week''s price of Rs 6,500 on Wednesday.
• Bloodbath on D-street, Sensex down by 493 pts
• Mumbai: Current account deficit, recent scams and sharp rise in food inflation, may lead to the apex bank to hike in key interest rates in its monetary policy review on January 25.

Sports

• IPL4: Bhajji & Symonds to don same team colours
• Bangalore: After already retaining temperamental off-spinner Harbhajan for the 4th season of the T20 league starting April 8, Mumbai Indians today bought Symonds for USD 850,000.
• Ganguly should quit IPL, says former coach Mitra
• Talking to PTI from Rajkot, the Saurashtra coach said Ganguly should take a cue from Anil Kumble and get into cricket administration for the betterment of the sport.
• Chinmay, Zeng upset GMs at Parsvnath chess tourney
• New Delhi: Playing black side of the Scheveningen variation of sicilian defence, Kulkarni got the better of his Uzbek rival in 27 moves while Chongsheng took one more move in Queen''s Gambit to overcome his fancied Austrian opponent on the first day of the event at Ludlow Castle Sports Complex.
• KKR, CSK & Pune Warriors spend big money on day1
• New Delhi: Among the cricketers who crossed the million dollar barrier, the top seven were Indians with Mahela Jayawardene being the most expensive foreign player bought for USD 1.5 million by Team Kochi.
• Sukore's brace secures win for Mumbai FC over Viva Kerala
• Kolhapur: After a barren first half, the 27-year-old mid-fielder Sukore scored for the hosts in the 65th and the 81st minutes to help the hosts register their fourth win of the season.
• Call on Bhaichung tomorrow: coach Bob Houghton
• Doha: Bhutia, who was struggling to recover from a calf muscle injury, was first de-registered as a player and made a technical official to boost the morale of his team-mates in the continental showpiece event but later re-registered as a player yesterday.
• Walmiki's second hat-trick guides Mumbai to win
• Mumbai: Walmiki, who came on to the field in the 20th minute, immediately made his presence felt to power his team to their second successive win in the league phase.
• T20: Patil recover to get past State Bank of Hyderabad
• Mumbai: Electing to bat after winning the toss, the visitors were kept on leash throughout by the hosts before ending up with a fighting score of 154 for 5 at D Y Patil Stadium in Nerul.
• Chidi's return boosts Mohan Bagan against Chirag
• Kolkata: Bagan''s defence has been their a worrying factor this season but coach Subhas Bhowmick''s side will hope to plug the loophole with their latest recruit Okwy Diamondstar who is likely to don the stopper''s role in his maiden appearance for green-and-maroon brigade.
• Indian golfer SSP Chowrasia misses cut at Africa Open
• The Indian added a second round 75 to his 74 on the opening day and ended at three-over 149 at the par-73 course.
• National Badminton: Top players continue to dominate
• Rohtak: In the men''s singles event, Chetan defeated Pratik Patel 21-13 21-9.
• It's better to play on SA pitches than India: Harbhajan
• Durban: Dubbed challenging at the start of the tour, Indian cricketers have taken a liking to the pitches of SAfrica with Harbhajan wondering why such tracks are not prepared back home.
• Fixing: Pak lawyer seeks criminal case against Malik
• Lahore: In the petition filed in the court of the Additional Sessions Judge here, Ishtiaq Ahmed Chaudhry alleged that Malik not only made millions of rupees through match-fixing but also damaged the country''s image.
• Jeev strikes back; Asia blank Europe at Royal Trophy
• Hua Hin: After Day 2, Asian team requires just two and a half points to win the Trophy for the second time.
• Franchises give cold shoulder to greats like Ganguly
• Bangalore: The ten IPL franchises made their thought process clear that a legend like Brian Lara & successful former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly have passed their sell-by-date.
• I-League: East Bengal scores 1-0 victory over Pune FC
• Kolkata: Their six-match winning juggernaut halted by Mumbai FC in Kolhapur in the previous match, East Bengal faced a tough first-half struggling to find the goal before their Australian star striker brought in the match-winner in the 62nd minute.
• Snooker: Shahbaz beats Parikh to top qualifying stage
• Mumbai: Khan registered an impressive 89-10, 69-37, 0-76, 57-67, 78-36, 71-20 win in the best-of-seven frames contest here.
• Arjun Atwal shoots four-under, tied 20th at Hawaii
• Kapalua (Hawaii): Robert Garrigus, the biggest hitter on the PGA Tour, ironically holed his wedgeshot for an eagle on 16th and then birdied the next two holes with booming drives to take the lead.
• Sutherland backs Nielsen to continue as Aussie coach
• Melbourne: Sutherland said that the coach will not be axed in the aftermath of humiliating 3-1 Ashes loss and will remain at the helm until his contract is over.
• 24 teams in Hockey India Women National tourney
• New Delhi: The tournament will be played on a league-cum-knockout format with 24 teams divided into pool of eight, a Hockey India (HI) release said.
• Injury woes for India ahead of T20 vs South Africa
• In an engrossing Test series, India managed to keep the overall scoreline 1-1 after losing the first, winning the second and drawing the third to maintain their number one status in the ICC rankings.
• Over Rs 9 crore for Uthappa! He's worth it, says Pune
• Bangalore: "Uthappa is a great Twenty20 player and he can also keep wickets. We also thought of his utility as a batsman and that is why we bid that money on him," Pune team CEO Sushanto Roy told reporters.
• Selectors not responsible for Ashes debacle: Hilditch
• Melbourne: "I think we''''ve done a very good job as a selection panel, but reality is we were totally outplayed," Hilditch told Sydney Morning Herald.
• Gambhir grabs eyeballs with Rs 11.04 crore KKR deal
• Bangalore: Gautam Gambhir turned out to be the biggest draw in auctions with the SRK co-owned KKR buying him for USD 2.4 mn (approx Rs 11.04 crore) for the fourth edition of IPL.
• Davydenko beats Nadal to reach Qatar Open final
• Doha: Fourth-seeded Davydenko won 6-3, 6-2 in 84 minutes against an uncharacteristically slow and sluggish Nadal, who had a fever earlier this week.
• Title-chasers Man City complete Dzeko signing
• Manchester: The 24-year-old, who is believed to have cost City 27 million pounds (32.5 million euros) has signed a four-and-a-half year contract and has been handed the number 10 shirt at the Eastlands club.
• Pakistan 235 for 4, 40 behind NZ in first test
• Hamilton: Shafiq posted 74, the highest score of the match so far, and Misbah reached 50 as Pakistan ground towards a first innings lead on a day on which only seven wickets fell.
• Waugh wants to rebuild Aus cricket but not as a coach
• Melbourne: "I do keep in contact with quite a few Australian players behind the scenes but I'd listen to whatever role came up," the 45-year-old cricketer added.
• Press call for heads to roll after Ashes farce
• Sydney: Cricket Australia (CA) has promised a review of the failed campaign after England won their third Test by an innings in Sydney yesterday to take an Ashes series in Australia for the first time in 24 years.
• Zulqarnain Haider urges PCB to clear his dues
• Karachi: Zulqarnain, who attended an important hearing of the British home department in London on Thursday pertaining to his asylum application in UK, said that before leaving the team in Dubai in November last year, he had featured in two T20 and four ODIs against South Africa in UAE.

09.01.2011,Sunday

National

• 'Gujarat development structure not acceptable for Kerala'
• Thrissur (Ker): "The state''''s precious land would not be left for the real estate dealers in the name of development," the CPI-M veteran said inaugurating the second phase of development of the Thrissur infopark at nearby Koratty near here.
• EC concerned over law and order situation in Bengal
• Kolkata: "Of course, we are concerned very much," Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi told a press conference here when asked whether EC was concerned over the law and order in the state.
• Gadkari lauds Nitish's contribution to NDA win in Bihar
• Guwahati: Noting that the importance of the BJP victory in the state was not a small success, he told the party''s National Executive here that the strike rate of 89 per cent is a historic feat in the annals of India''s electoral history.
• Cong says Sibal has right to comment on CAG report
• New Delhi: "I do not think he was undermining the authority of any constitutional body. He as a minister has the relevant papers.
• HM for efforts from public & pvt sector in education
• Chennai: Private initiatives should complement public initiatives so that every child is enrolled (in schools) and gets eight to ten years of education, he said in his address at the silver jubilee celebrations of Chettinad Vidyashram here.
• Govt promises to give PIOs life-long visa-free entry
• New Delhi: Singh said the government had decided to merge the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) and the Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) cards into a single facility.
• North faces another frosty day; death toll reaches 68
• New Delhi: While three persons died in UP''s Shahjahanpur district, two deaths were reported from Bareilly and one from Basti.
• Delhi gets coldest on weekend; max drops to lowest
• New Delhi: The citizens wrapped themselves in extra layers of wollens as they woke up to a chilly morning with night temperatures sliding to a low of 4.3 degree Celsius, the same as yesterday, and a dense fog cover adding to their woes.
• NDA govt gave green nod to Akshardham temple: CM
• New Delhi: "I do not know in what context Ramesh spoke. However, the decision to give the clearance was taken by the then NDA government and the permission was given by the authorities," Dikshit told reporters here.
• Indo-French naval exercises begin off Goa coast
• The French Navy has its newly inducted FNS Forbin destroyer as a part of its Carrier Strike Group, led by aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle.
• 'World Bank team to submit report on Sunderbans'
• Canning (WB): "After we signed an agreement with World Bank, a team had visited Sunderbans for five times to assess the present ecological situation and met me twice in Kolkata," he told a gathering while inaugurating a bridge in the riverine belt.
• 5 kg RDX recovered from militant hideout in Poonch
• Poonch (J&K): On specific information, 37 Rashtriya Rifles troops and Special Operation Group of Police raided the hideout in Chatral-Mendhar, about 160-kms from Jammu, in the border district, they said.
• NC asks India, Pakistan leaders to begin peace talks
• Srinagar: "The bitter relations between India and Pakistan directly affect the people of Kashmir," Beig, Lok Sabha member from south Kashmir, said in a statement.
• Fog disrupts flight operations at IGI Airport
• New Delhi: "Most of the flights operated on time but schedule of about 35 domestic and five international flights were affected while a cargo flight of Blue Dart (BZ 304) from Ahmedabad was diverted back to its origin station early in the morning," an airport official said.
• Four arrested for lodging false case against SP MLA
• Lucknow: On January 6, Eram Khatoon lodged an FIR at Kotwali police station of Sultanpur city that her granddaughter five-year-old Sanobar was kidnapped by three unidentified persons, they said.
• Mother and daughter hacked to death in UP village
• Lucknow: Guddi Singh (40) and her daughter Puja (16) were attacked with a sharp-edged weapon and killed at Piparipur village late last night, they said.
• Uttar Pradesh tops among states in ragging incidents
• Muzaffarnagar: Replying to a query under the Right to Information Act filed by Kush Kalra, the Human Resource Development Ministry said that after UP, West Bengal reported the second highest number of 86 cases.
• Women organisations flay Modi for terming Rupam 'blackmailer'
• Patna: The organisations under the banner of Bihar Women''s Network and All India Mahila Sanskritik Manch (AIMSS) blocked the busy Dakbunglow for over an hour and raised anti-government and anti-Modi slogans for allegedly trying to scuttle a CBI probe into the incident.
• Goods worth Rs 30 lakh destroyed, fireman hurt in fire
• Ghaziabad: Goods worth over Rs 30 lakh were destroyed and a fireman identified as Surender Singh sustained injuries while trying to douse the fire that broke out in the shop due to an electrical short-circuit, they said.
• Liquid explosive found at Maoist camp in Orissa
• Malkangiri (Orissa): Personnel of elite anti-Maoist force Special Operation Group (SOG) and District Voluntary Police (DVP) during a joint operation detected a Maoist camp inside Kathabaunsaguda forest under Mithili police station and found the explosives, Malkangiri SP Anirudha Singh said.
• Six more die due to cold in UP; death toll rises to 68
• Lucknow: While three persons died in Shahjahanpur district, two deaths were reported from Bareilly and one from Basti district in the last 24 hours, official sources said here.
• Teacher arrested for removing girl student's veil
• Ranchi: Trouble started when a local newspaper published the photographs in sequence showing how the teacher removed the girl''s veil to identify her during a students'' protest on Friday demanding that they be allowed to fill up forms for intermediate examinations.
• LF chief whip admits CPI(M) men had arms
• Burdwan (WB): "They were homeless CPI(M) supporters, who had taken shelter in that house. They had arms, but it was for self-defence," Masih told reporters here in Burdwan district.
• CPI(M) and Trinamool cross swords before EC
• Kolkata: CPI(M) representative Rabin Deb alleged before the full commission headed by Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi that Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, was making false allegations against CPI(M) and the West Bengal government to disturb the polls.
• TDP for withdrawal of central forces from Telangana
• Hyderabad: A delegation of TDP MLAs from Telangana met Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy at his office this afternoon and said the presence of para-military forces on OU campus was adding to the tension and demanded their withdrawal.
• HC notice on illegal constructions near Raj Bhavan
• Jaipur: Taking cognisance of a petition field by residents of Hari Marg, Civil Lines Colony, Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari issued show cause notices to Secretary UDH, Chief Executive Officer Jaipur Municipal Corporation and Commissioner JDA.
• Congress blocks traffic; TC holds condemnation day
• Kolkata: Road blocks were put up at the busy E M Bypass, C R Avenue, Dharamtolla, Moulali and Bowbazar disrupting traffic.
• 'Role of institutions fostering militancy be probed'
• New Delhi: "I know very well the kind of training given by some of the institutions in our own country which make a person militant. Ultimately he can become a human bomb. And that is a thing we seriously need to look into...the issue is how terrorism is born in our country and spread," he told reporters here.
• 'Declare unseasonal rains in Orissa as national calamity'
• Berhampur (Orissa): "As the extent of damage to crop was extensive in all the three states during harvest, the Centre should treat it as a national calamity," CPI general secretary A B Bardhan said at a party meeting in Ganjam district headquarters Chhatrapur.
• Bihar Deputy CM for CBI probe into MLA murder case
• Patna: "Though the Bihar police is competent enough to carry forward the investigation, it will be better to hand it over to CBI," Modi said in a letter to Kumar before leaving for Guwahati to attend the national executive meeting of the BJP.
• 2G spectrum case: 'Sibal's stand bizarre and flawed'
• Bangalore: Terming as bizarre Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal stand in the 2G allocation, CPI-M today said it appeared to be "a cover-up exercise" to shield beneficiaries of the scam.
• 'Nothing new in Abdullah's statement on displaced KPs'
• Jammu: "It (Farooq Abdullah''s statement) has only opened up the raw wounds of the Pandits of Kashmir, reminding them of the atrocities inflicted upon them in Kashmir," Panun Kashmir President Ashwani Chrungoo said.
• Nothing wrong in Sibal criticising CAG, says Congress
• New Delhi: "CAG report is for scrutiny. Any MP or minister can raise question mark on CAG report based on the latter''s findings. If Sibal has said something based on documents, we do not think it is wrong on his part," party spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed told PTI.
• New Human Resource policy for Prasar Bharti soon
• Chennai: "New recruitment rules and service conditions and a human resource policy for the employees would be out in another three-four months," Prasar Bharati Member, Personnel, V Shivakumar said.
• MNS gets Shiv Sena's support on MLA assault case
• Mumbai: "Policemen mercilessly beat up Harshavardhan Jadhav as if he was a robber. Police did not verify whether he was a people''s representative. Such policemen should be deployed in Naxal areas," Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray told reporters at Sena Bhawan here.
• 'Top 22 commanders of militant outfits killed in JK'
• Jammu: "Police and security forces have killed 22 top commanders, including eight foreign terrorists, in J&K in 2010," Director General of Police Kuldeep Khoda told PTI.
• Cold wave: Delhi government extends school holidays
• New Delhi: In effect, the schools will be closed till January 14, which is a holiday for the ''''Lohri'''' festival.
• Dikshit sidesteps Ramesh's remarks on Akshardham
• New Delhi: "I do not know in what context Ramesh spoke. However, the decision to give the clearance was taken by the then NDA government and the permission was given by the authorities," Dikshit told reporters here.
• Mamata consoles bereaved families at Netai village
• Netai (WB): Banerjee told the villagers that it was commendable the way in which they had resisted CPI(M) cadre without arms and said they should guard their villagers themselves.
• Committee on TRP sys to soon submit report to Soni
• New Delhi: The committee, headed by Dr Amit Mitra, Secretary General FICCI, was constituted in May to review the existing system in India and suggest measures to bring in place an effective mechanism for a transparent TRP system.
• Prime Minister announces merging of OCI, PIO cards
• New Delhi: Singh also said that the government had decided to extended the facility of the Indian Community Welfare Fund to all the Indian Missions from the current 42.
• 10 fishermen held by Pak Marine agency; 4 boats seized
• Ahmedabad: "The Pakistani agency arrested the fishermen yesterday and seized four fishing boats belonging to Porbandar," National Fish Forum Secretary Manish Lodhari said.
• 'Binayak sentence looks like miscarriage of justice'
• New Delhi: Sen also hoped that the judgement convicting Binayak, who has been awarded life term by a Chhattisgarh court for "sedition" and colluding with Maoists, will not "survive" the challenge made to the higher courts of the country.
• Central Excise official caught taking Rs 1 crore bribe
• Pune: "Acting on a tip-off, a trap was laid and K B Mahadik, a superintendent in the Central Excise and Customs department, was caught while accepting the bribe from the businessman yesterday," CBI Joint Director Rishiraj Singh said.
• 'Talks on for defence contracts worth USD 8-bn' 
• Hyderabad: The defence equipment manufacturing industry is engaged in talks with overseas firms for contracts worth more than USD-8 bn, MoS for Defence, M M Pallam Raju said today.
• Nagpur youth sings for more than 93 hrs; hospitalised
• Nagpur: Waghmare had set a target of 101 hours of continuous singing but was forced to stop after doctors attending on him found him unfit for further singing yesterday, as his physical condition deteriorated.
• Kerala government makes change in its emblem
• Thiruvananthapuram: The changes, as per the recommendation of a committee that looked into the issue, were made to make the state emblem in tune with the national emblem as the Government of India uses the phrase ''Satyameva Jayate'' below the four lions standing back-to-back, an official release said.
• Kerala Govt seeks meeting of state Food Ministers
• Thiruvananthapuram: State Food Minister C Divakaran said food inflation had broken all records and the situation was likely to be grim in coming days.
• Sonia asks Union Ministers,CMs to give up discretionary powers
• New Delhi: Gandhi today also held a meeting of party general secretaries and asked them to start preparations to hold block level campaigns against NDA on the issue of corruption.
• Heptulla confident of minority vote for BJP in Assam
• Guwahati: "When development takes place it does not ignore minorities but covers people from all communities," she told reporters here on the sidelines of the two-day BJP national executive committee meeting which began here today.
• Chiefs of Army, Air Force to appear before PAC
• New Delhi: Accordingly, the PAC has been informed that Army chief General V K Singh and Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal P V Naik would be appearing before it, they said.
• Left flays SC order banning road-side meetings
• Thiruvananthapuram: The Court order amounted to "breach" of democratic and Constitutional privileges like freedom of expression, the CPI-M, which heads the ruling LDF, said.
• Swamy slams Sibal's remarks on CAG projection of 2G loss
• New Delhi: Swamy said the court should take suo motu notice of the contempt of court committed by the Minister, who made statements about the case when the Supreme Court had passed an order directing the CBI to report to it.
• Rahul Gandhi on 2-day visit to UP from Jan 10
• Lucknow: The AICC general secretary will be visiting five districts - Lucknow, Allahabad, Jhansi, Agra and Varanasi during his two day visit, state president of National Student Union of India (NSUI) Rahul Rai said.
• Advisory to Meghalaya politicians travelling to Assam
• Shillong: "The MLAs and politicians of Meghalaya are strongly advised not to travel to Assam without prior permission from the administration under any circumstances. Travel from Garo Hills to Guwahati and Shillong through Assam has been strongly advised against," the East Garo Hills administration informed after taking the decision last night.
• Joshi criticises Sibal for debunking CAG figures
• Guwahati: Joshi said Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar had appeared before the PAC but never questioned the CAG''s projection of presumptive losses.
• BJP national executive meeting begins in Guwahati
• Guwahati: The two-day meet, held in the North-East for the first time, was inaugurated by party president Nitin Gadkari in the presence of senior leaders L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley.
• 2nd phase of census to begin from March 9: RGCCI
• Jammu: About 30,000 employees of Jammu and Kashmir are being trained to conduct the second phase of the Census in the state, he said.
• Now, you can control comp commands by thought
• Mumbai: Acting as an interface designed to translate what happens in the brain into a computer command, this software -''''OpenViBE''''- is the outcome of a project initiated in 2005 and has a multitude of potential applications.
• Toll eight, curfew relaxed during day in Meghalaya
• Shillong: A body was recovered on the Assam side yesterday, official sources said, adding a number of abandoned houses were burnt down in the Adolgre area along the border last night.
• Court issues NBW against 19 AIADMK leaders
• Madurai: Judicial Magistrate of Tirumangalam near here issued the warrants against Panneerselvam, former ministers K A Sengottaiyan and Pollachi Jayaraman and 17 others yesterday.
• Goods train derails in Bihar, rail traffic disrupted
• Bhabua(Bihar): Around 19 wagons of a goods train laden with coal derailed as the train reached Muthani station in Bihar''s Kaimur district early this morning, railway sources said.
• Woman associate of Hizb commander arrested
• Jammu: Acting on the interrogation inputs of Hizb Divisional Commander Gulam Nabi Sheikh alais Javaid Qureshi, police team raided a house in Sirwal-Behota village of Marmat belt in Doda district last evening and arrested Yasmeena Banoo, Deputy Inspector General Ramban-Kishtwar-Doda Maneesh Sinha said.
• Fog disrupts train services, 100 trains delayed
• New Delhi: Northern Railway officials said in view of the dense fog in many areas of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, train traffic has been disrupted.
• Cold wave continues to sweep national capital
• New Delhi: A thick layer of fog engulfed the city this morning even as the cold wave continued unabated leaving Delhiites shivering and disrupting flight operations.
• Fog disrupts flight operations at IGI in Delhi
• New Delhi: A cargo flight was diverted while schedule of several others were affected this morning, an airport official said.
• HC admits Binayak's appeal against life sentence
• Bilaspur: After preliminary hearing, division bench of Justices T P Sharma and Justice R L Jhanwar asked the trial court to submit the case diary and deferred hearing on the case to January 24.
• Ex-Medical Education Director of C'garh held
• Raipur: Former top official S L Adile was apprehended from Golbazaar area of the city, ASP Lal Umed Singh told PTI.

International

• Qaeda plotting Mumbai-style terror attack in UK
• London: British security agency are also monitoring all planes flying through the UK to destinations to the US and mainland Europe as part of the terrorist threat, media report said.
• Jail for sexual assault for Pakistan-origin gang leaders
• London: According to a report in The Times, 27-year-old Abid Siddique, a contract cleaner, and 28-year-old Mohammed Liaqat, who has a conviction for a racially motivated assault, presented themselves in the Pakistani community as family men and devout Muslims.
• Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries meet in Bhutan next month
• Pakistan will decide on accepting India''s standing invitation for Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to visit New Delhi after assessing the outcome of the meeting of the Foreign Secretaries in Thimphu in February, sources in the Pakistan government told PTI.
• Iran says can make own nuclear fuel plates and rods
• Tehran: Salehi, the driving force behind Iran''s contentious atomic programme, said the country has completed the construction of a facility in the central city of Isfahan to the fuel plates and rods which power nuclear reactors.
• Egypt's Grand Mufti on first ever visit to India
• Cairo: Gomaa, the current Mufti and one of the world''s most recognisable Muslim scholars, will deliver a special address at the conference which is being attended by Ulemas world over, Egyptian Ambassador Khaled al-Baqly said here. After attending the conference he will fly to New Delhi for talks with Vice President Hamid Ansari and Minister of New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah on Monday.
• Krishna arrives in Kabul; to meet top Afghan leaders
• Kabul: External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, who arrived here today on a two-day visit, will hold talks with Afghan leadership during which he will also discuss security of Indian nationals and reiterate India''s commitment for the reconstruction of the war-torn country.
• 2 held  for influencing Qadri kill Pak Punjab Governor
• The suspects were picked up from Lahore and Rawalpindi after investigators scrutinised Qadri''s mobile phone records, media reports quoted officials as saying.
• Four killed in South Sudan attack ahead of referendum
• Juba (Sudan): Despite the attack, most officials predict the weeklong vote to go peacefully.
• School website turns a porno shocker in China
• Beijing: Porno pictures popped up when students High School in Feidong County clicked on their school''s website prompting the school officials to lodge a police complaint.
• India concerned over LTTE radio equipment: cable
• Colombo: The diplomatic cable leaked by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks said the government, headed by the prime minister Ranil Wickremasinghe in 2002, had requested assistance of the Royal Norwegian government, the facilitator of the troubled peace process, to import radio equipment for the LTTE''s radio "Voice of Tigers" during the ceasefire period.
• Third package ignites at Washington postal facility
• Washington: Authorities were bracing for more packages to surface.
• Governor wins rerun election in Nigeria's oil rich state
• Abuja: However, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who defeated his major opponent, Great Ogboru of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) by 275,253 to 138,244 votes will serve only the remaining of his court terminated tenure which ends in May.
• Radical Iraqi cleric urges resistance against America
• Najaf: Addressing an adoring crowd of thousands, Muqtada al-Sadr also called on the newly formed government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make sure all US forces leave Iraq by the end of the year as planned. And he warned that "we have the political means" to reject that government if it does not provide security and services to its citizens.
• Chile's recognition of Palestine useless, says Israel
• Jerusalem: "It is a useless and empty gesture because it will not change anything," the official said a day after Chile announced it has recognised Palestine as an independent state, in the footsteps of other Latin American countries.
• South separatists kill two Yemen troops: official
• Aden (Yemen): Militants from the Southern Movement opened fire on the checkpoint in the area of Al-Milah, close to the town of Habilayn which has been under the control of southern gunmen for weeks, the official told AFP.
• China to build tower similar to Dubai's Burj Khalifa
• Dubai: Graphics and planning of the ''seven-star'' hotel has already been completed and it will be situated at the end of Chang An avenue, which runs across the Chinese capital''s Tiananmen Square, according to the report.
• 'Perpetrators of Samjhauta blast be brought to justice'
• "It took almost four years for the Samjhauta Express investigations to come to this pass. We can only hope that no further time will be squandered in bringing the criminals to justice," Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told PTI in a text message.
• US demanding Twitter account information: Cables 
• London: In an e-mail statement, WikiLeaks said that US investigators had gone to the San Francisco-based Twitter Inc to demand the private messages, contact information, and other personal details of founder Julian Assange and three people associated with the secret-spilling website.
• Six perons dead in communist clashes in Philippines
• Manila: One soldier was killed in a battle with insurgents today while four rebels and one policeman died in a clash two days earlier in incidents in the southern Philippines, police and military spokesmen said.
• Pak court adjourns trial of 26/11 suspects till Jan 22
• Prosecution lawyers informed Judge Rana Nisar Ahmed of the Rawalpindi-based anti-terrorism court that they needed more time to withdraw the petition as it was yet to be listed by the Lahore High Court.
• Pak, Indian MPs call for efforts to remove trust deficit
• The lawmakers made the recommendation during the Pakistan-India Parliamentarians Dialogue organised by the NGO Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, yesterday.
• Two sects clash in Bangladesh over control of mosque
• At least 20 people were injured and 20 shops were set on fire in the clash between the followers of relatively hardliner Wahabi sect and Sunni group over the dominance of a mosque during Friday prayers, witnesses and officials said.
• Madhesi party withdraws its 4 ministers from Nepal govt
• However, the Terai Madhes Democratic Party (TMDP), which had a total of 20 seats in the 601-strong Constituent Assembly, said it would continue to support the ruling alliance from outside.
• China plans to allow private jets to fly in low-altitude
• Beijing: The Pinggu District administration is planning to open the airspace to amateur pilots, The Beijing Morning Post reported quoting Zheng Jifu, head of the district.
• Argentina: 1K workers found in sub-human conditions
• Buenos Aires: According to the report, the number is likely to increase, as police raided other facilities in the outskirts of Buenos Aires last Friday, in the wake of an alleged case of people trafficking.
• 'EU diplomats in Dhaka divided over war crimes trial'
• Dhaka: The difference of opinion surfaced among the diplomats about what public position the European Union should take on the adequacy of the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973, under which major Bengali-speaking suspects of the war crimes were being exposed to justice, The New Age newspaper said.
• Nepali airline's flights on Kathmandu-Lucknow route
• Kathmandu: Buddha Air''s 47 seater ATR-42 aircraft embarked on its inaugural flight to Lucknow yesterday. The private airline will fly to the Indian city three times a week on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the airlines sources said.
• Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries to meet in Bhutan
• Pakistan will decide on accepting India''s standing invitation for Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to visit New Delhi after assessing the outcome of the talks between the Foreign Secretaries in Thimphu on the margins of the SAARC meet, which is expected to be held in February, the sources in the Pakistan government told PTI.
• US to provide more military aid to Pakistan: report
• Washington: Vice-president Joseph Biden will deliver the message outlining the new aid package when he visits Pakistan next week, The ''Washington Post'' reported today.
• US ambassador expected in Syria this month
• Washington: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swore in Robert Ford yesterday, and her spokesman Philip Crowley said the new ambassador would be in Damascus "before the end of January." The United States withdrew its ambassador after the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in a massive car bomb that was widely blamed on Syria. Damascus has always denied the allegations.
• New Jersey police team cancels Gujarat visit
• Five police officers from New Jersey, the US state that has a sizeable population of Indian Americans, in particular those from Gujarat, were scheduled to leave for India this week for the ''Sardar Patel World Police Unity Tour'', a 115-mile bicycle ride in Gujarat that was scheduled for today.
• Kanishka bombing: Inderjit Reyat gets 9 years in jail
• Toronto:  Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only man convicted in 1985 AI bombing, has been sentenced to 9 years in jail by a Canadian court for perjury at the trial of his 2 co-accused conspirators.
• US concerned about increasing extremism in Pak
• Washington: "A civilian-led democratic government is integral to economic and social development," Crowley said when asked about the latest political development in Pakistan.
• 'Sino-India growth due to the 6-decade peace in Asia'
• "This extraordinary growth that we''ve witnessed and the dynamism in the Asia-Pacific region, and that of China and India in particular, has been made possible by 60 years of peace, stability and prosperity," said Michael Schiffer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia policy in his remarks at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
• Racy Catholic calendar angers Spain church leaders
• Sant Joan (Spain): The group has almost sold out of the 10-euro (USD 13) 2011 calendars and is considering another print run. But Mallorca''s Bishop Jesus Murgui is blasting the effort as showing disrespect for the most important Catholic date.
• 'US, India working to address hunger, poverty in world'
• "We''''re currently working with the Government of India to really bring the benefits of those programmes to other parts of the world," Raj Shah, Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said at a State Department news conference yesterday.
• N Korea reopens cooperation office, offers talk dates
• Seoul: In a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, it also said it would reopen an office for inter-Korean economic cooperation at the North''''s Kaesong City, which it shut down amid high tensions last year.
• Gunmen abduct two Frenchmen in Niger: witnesses
• Niamey: Two armed men burst into the restaurant, Le Toulousain, in the city centre, when it was crowded with diners and forced the two men to follow them, said staff and diners.
• US, Japan to continue close consultation on NKorea
• Washington: Visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara met US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon at the White House yesterday.
• EU charges former Kosovo rebels with war crimes
• Pristina: The former commander of the military police for the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Sabit Geci, 52, and Riza Alija, 50, were charged with "war crimes against (the) civilian population" committed in two KLA camps in neighbouring Albania, the indictment said.
• Israeli soldier killed in friendly fire at Gaza border
• Jerusalem: The soldiers were hit by friendly fire when more soldiers from the same battalion arrived at the scene to their aid, the Israeli army reported today.
• Envelope ignites at US post office
• Washington: "It''s a post office. They are characterizing it as an ignition, not an explosion at this point," Washington police officer Hugh Carew told AFP yesterday.
• WikiLeaks' Assange signs deal to tell life story
• London: Edinburgh-based Canongate Books said it had acquired world rights - apart from North America where the publisher will be Alfred A Knopf - to the whistleblower''s autobiography.
• Chile recognises Palestine as 'sovereign' state
• Santiago: "The government of Chile has adopted the resolution today recognising the existence of the state of Palestine as a free, independent and sovereign state," he said, reading a foreign ministry declaration.
• House takes first step toward health care repeal
• Washington: But the 236-181 largely party-line vote is unlikely to amount to more than a political message, since Democrats who still run the Senate have promised to block efforts to scrap the law and Obama has veto power.
• Russia ready to ratify US arms treaty: Kosachyov
• Moscow: Russia''s lower house of parliament gave preliminary approval to the treaty before the New Year''s holidays, but decided to delay a final vote to give the Russian side time to study the resolution passed by the US Senate when it ratified the pact last month.
• Red Cross emblem dropped from UK production
• London: Glasgow''s Pavilion Theatre had a nurse character in the pantomime show wearing a costume with red crosses on his hat and tunic, but changed the crosses from red to green after the British Red Cross objected.
• Obama names political veteran to top economic post
• Washington: Gene Sperling''s appointment as director of the National Economic Council coincided with the release of the December jobs report that showed the unemployment rate dropping to 9.4 per cent, its lowest level in nearly two years.
• UN rights chief sees warnings in religion attacks
• Geneva: In a statement a week after 21 people died in a bomb attack outside a Coptic church in Egypt, Pillay said states should act to promote religious tolerance and reduce such attacks in the long term.
• Investigators in US try to trace 2 fiery packages
• Baltimore: The package addressed to Gov Martin O''Malley was sent by someone griping about highway signs that urge motorists to call in tips about suspicious activity.
• Nigeria: Ruling party wins rerun state election
• Lagos: Officials with the Independent National Electoral Commission said Emmanuel Uduaghan, a candidate with the ruling People''s Democratic Party, clinched the vote yesterday in Delta state.
• NATO to deploy radar planes to Afghanistan
• Brussels: Allies reached an agreement for the "AWACS to begin their operations in Afghanistan in mid-January," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told AFP.

Business

• More raids on onion traders by I-T deptt in the offing
• New Delhi: Department sources said they conducted survey operations on city-based premises of onion traders from neighbouring UP.
• Gurgaon police estimates Citibank fraud at Rs 400 cr
• Gurgaon: In a report filed with the city court, the police said that Puri was a "educated and clever person" and had diverted funds of companies and individuals into an account jointly held by his relatives Premnath Puri, Diksha Puri and Shaila.
• BOI's 0.5 pc concession on loans to overseas Indians
• New Delhi: The concession has been made to woo the diaspora, members of which are participating in the three-day Pravasi Bhartiya Divas being held here.
• Russia tightens imports from Germany amid dioxin scare
• Moscow: The Russian federal agriculture watchdog - Rosselkhoznadzor - has requested official information from Germany and EU on the probe and steps taken by them to prevent the highly toxic dioxin from entering the human food chain.
• Deora meets FM; seeks release 10K cr to oil cos soon
• Mumbai: "I met Mukherjee here and demanded that the government bear at least 55 per cent of the total under recoveries (the revenue state retailers lose on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost)," Deora told PTI after the meeting.
• Govt fund for covering risk of home loans to poor
• New Delhi: "Housing finance companies (HFCs) and banks hesitate to serve the low-income market for a variety of reasons such as inability to assess credit worthiness, uncertain cash flows and lower profits," she said while addressing the national convention of the National Real Estate Development Council.
• Shopping malls energy guzzlers, says Union Minister
• New Delhi: "Shopping malls are vulgar display of wealth and a vulgar wastage of energy and space," Minister of State for Urban Development Saugata Roy said at a seminar, agreeing with environmentalist R K Pachauri who also described the malls as "energy guzzlers".
• Onion retail at Rs 65/kg, wholesale prices fall 
• New Delhi: Retail prices of onion continue to rule high at Rs 60-65 per kilogram in metros even as wholesale rates have declined following the nationwide tax raids on traders.
• 'Sibal 2G remark to protect corporates' ill-gotten gains'
• New Delhi: "It is clear from Sibal''s defence that the UPA Government is far more deeply involved than just the lone acts of (former Telecom Minister) A Raja," the CPI(M) Politburo said, adding his "bizarre defence" of the 2G spectrum allocation once again underlined the need for a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate the issue.
• Kerala CM to inaugurate Chertalla Infopark
• Kochi: He would also inaugurate the second phase of the Infopark in Koratty, an official release said here today.
• Recovery in gold, silver on fresh buying, good demand
• Mumbai: Standard gold (99.5 per cent purity) gained Rs 130 per 10 grams to close at Rs 20,280 from Friday''s closing level of Rs 20,150.
• I-T surveys on Delhi premises of UP onion traders
• New Delhi: Sources said the surveys were carried out on the premises of those traders who were searched by the department in Uttar Pradesh yesterday.
• Citi case: Court extends Hero Group official's custody
• Gurgaon: Gupta, an Assistant Vice-President with Hero Group, allegedly invested about Rs 250 crore belonging to promoters of the Group and other companies through Shivraj Puri, the alleged mind of the scam.
• Tejas soon to be inducted into Indian Air Force
• Bangalore: "This is the first time that an indigenously designed and developed military fighter aircraft would be certified for Air Force operations," a Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) release said here.
• India exports grow highest in 33 months in December
• New Delhi: Exports in December aggregated USD 22.5 billion, while imports contracted by 11.1 per cent to USD 25.1 billion, resulting in a narrow trade deficit of USD 2.6 billion, the lowest in three years.
• 12th Plan: Govt hopes 30 pc infra spend from overseas
• New Delhi: "We aim to invest USD 1 trillion in the infrastructure sector in the 12th Plan Period. We hope 30 per cent of the proposed investment will come from various overseas funds," Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath told reporters on the sidelines of 9th Pravasi Bhartiya Divas here.
• 120 MSME's to participate in Ind Expo from Jan 20
• Indore: Organised by the MSME Development Institute, among others, the fair would see both public and private sector companies from across the country exhibiting their products and services.
• 'Proper infrastructure needed to attract investments'
• Rourkela: Inaugurating a two-day International Conference on "Electronic system", at National Institute of Technology (NIT) here today, WESC Chairman Vijay Prakash Saha underlined the need for a congenial atmosphere in the area in particular and in the country in general to attract the investors.
• China plans to build more electronic charging stations
• State Grid Corp of China (SGCC) plans to build more electric charging stations in Beijing and several other cities this year to meet rising demand for electric vehicles, official media reported today.
• 'Govt committed to take steps to moderate price rise'
• New Delhi: "We have to take all the necessary steps to keep inflation at moderate levels", he said while speaking at the 9th Pravasi Bhartiya Divas here.
• Gold prices recovers on local buying; silver still down
• New Delhi: However, silver remained under selling pressure and lost Rs 75 to Rs 44,625 per kg.
• Pak yet to decide on resuming onion export to India
• Islamabad: Pakistan is yet to decide on India's request for resumption of onion exports through Wagah border after it was banned earlier this week to stabilise prices in domestic markets.
• Sugar closes lower on reduce offtake, ample supply
• New Delhi: Market analysts said, fall in demand, amid increased supply from mills, brought down the sugar prices.
• India-Oman Oil refinery likely to be inaugurated
• Sagar (MP): Although the production has begun, the formal inauguration is yet to be done, the sources said.
• Wholesale onion prices decline by Rs 3 in Delhi
• New Delhi: "Arrival of onions are increasing from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. As a result, prices have come down by Rs 3 per kg from yesterday''s level," General Secretary of Tomato and Onion Merchant Association (based in Delhi''s Azadpur mandi) Rajendra Sharma told PTI.
• Moong dal and gram dal went up, sugar decline
• Chennai: Moong dal moved up by Rs 100 on Thursday at Rs 6,600 and ended at the same rate today over its previous week''s price of Rs 6,500 on Wednesday.
• Bloodbath on D-street, Sensex down by 493 pts
• Mumbai: Current account deficit, recent scams and sharp rise in food inflation, may lead to the apex bank to hike in key interest rates in its monetary policy review on January 25.

Sports

• Indian pair describes today's victory as thrilling one
• Chennai: Paes and Bhupathi, playing here as a pair for the first time in eight years since their last appearance here culminated in a title triumph in 2002, entered the doubles final after a 6-1 7-6 (4) 10-5 victory over Cilic and Dodig.
• Ganguly should quit IPL, says former coach Mitra
• Talking to PTI from Rajkot, the Saurashtra coach said Ganguly should take a cue from Anil Kumble and get into cricket administration for the betterment of the sport.
• Sukore's brace secures win for Mumbai FC over Viva Kerala
• Kolhapur: After a barren first half, the 27-year-old mid-fielder Sukore scored for the hosts in the 65th and the 81st minutes to help the hosts register their fourth win of the season.
• IPL4: Bhajji & Symonds to don same team colours
• Bangalore: After already retaining temperamental off-spinner Harbhajan for the 4th season of the T20 league starting April 8, Mumbai Indians today bought Symonds for USD 850,000.
• Call on Bhaichung tomorrow: coach Bob Houghton
• Doha: Bhutia, who was struggling to recover from a calf muscle injury, was first de-registered as a player and made a technical official to boost the morale of his team-mates in the continental showpiece event but later re-registered as a player yesterday.
• Chinmay, Zeng upset GMs at Parsvnath chess tourney
• New Delhi: Playing black side of the Scheveningen variation of sicilian defence, Kulkarni got the better of his Uzbek rival in 27 moves while Chongsheng took one more move in Queen''s Gambit to overcome his fancied Austrian opponent on the first day of the event at Ludlow Castle Sports Complex.
• Walmiki's second hat-trick guides Mumbai to win
• Mumbai: Walmiki, who came on to the field in the 20th minute, immediately made his presence felt to power his team to their second successive win in the league phase.
• KKR, CSK & Pune Warriors spend big money on day1
• New Delhi: Among the cricketers who crossed the million dollar barrier, the top seven were Indians with Mahela Jayawardene being the most expensive foreign player bought for USD 1.5 million by Team Kochi.
• T20: Patil recover to get past State Bank of Hyderabad
• Mumbai: Electing to bat after winning the toss, the visitors were kept on leash throughout by the hosts before ending up with a fighting score of 154 for 5 at D Y Patil Stadium in Nerul.
• Chidi's return boosts Mohan Bagan against Chirag
• Kolkata: Bagan''s defence has been their a worrying factor this season but coach Subhas Bhowmick''s side will hope to plug the loophole with their latest recruit Okwy Diamondstar who is likely to don the stopper''s role in his maiden appearance for green-and-maroon brigade.
• Indian golfer SSP Chowrasia misses cut at Africa Open
• The Indian added a second round 75 to his 74 on the opening day and ended at three-over 149 at the par-73 course.
• National Badminton: Top players continue to dominate
• Rohtak: In the men''s singles event, Chetan defeated Pratik Patel 21-13 21-9.
• It's better to play on SA pitches than India: Harbhajan
• Durban: Dubbed challenging at the start of the tour, Indian cricketers have taken a liking to the pitches of SAfrica with Harbhajan wondering why such tracks are not prepared back home.
• Fixing: Pak lawyer seeks criminal case against Malik
• Lahore: In the petition filed in the court of the Additional Sessions Judge here, Ishtiaq Ahmed Chaudhry alleged that Malik not only made millions of rupees through match-fixing but also damaged the country''s image.
• Jeev strikes back; Asia blank Europe at Royal Trophy
• Hua Hin: After Day 2, Asian team requires just two and a half points to win the Trophy for the second time.
• Franchises give cold shoulder to greats like Ganguly
• Bangalore: The ten IPL franchises made their thought process clear that a legend like Brian Lara & successful former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly have passed their sell-by-date.
• I-League: East Bengal scores 1-0 victory over Pune FC
• Kolkata: Their six-match winning juggernaut halted by Mumbai FC in Kolhapur in the previous match, East Bengal faced a tough first-half struggling to find the goal before their Australian star striker brought in the match-winner in the 62nd minute.
• Snooker: Shahbaz beats Parikh to top qualifying stage
• Mumbai: Khan registered an impressive 89-10, 69-37, 0-76, 57-67, 78-36, 71-20 win in the best-of-seven frames contest here.
• Arjun Atwal shoots four-under, tied 20th at Hawaii
• Kapalua (Hawaii): Robert Garrigus, the biggest hitter on the PGA Tour, ironically holed his wedgeshot for an eagle on 16th and then birdied the next two holes with booming drives to take the lead.
• Sutherland backs Nielsen to continue as Aussie coach
• Melbourne: Sutherland said that the coach will not be axed in the aftermath of humiliating 3-1 Ashes loss and will remain at the helm until his contract is over.
• 24 teams in Hockey India Women National tourney
• New Delhi: The tournament will be played on a league-cum-knockout format with 24 teams divided into pool of eight, a Hockey India (HI) release said.
• Injury woes for India ahead of T20 vs South Africa
• In an engrossing Test series, India managed to keep the overall scoreline 1-1 after losing the first, winning the second and drawing the third to maintain their number one status in the ICC rankings.
• Over Rs 9 crore for Uthappa! He's worth it, says Pune
• Bangalore: "Uthappa is a great Twenty20 player and he can also keep wickets. We also thought of his utility as a batsman and that is why we bid that money on him," Pune team CEO Sushanto Roy told reporters.
• Selectors not responsible for Ashes debacle: Hilditch
• Melbourne: "I think we''''ve done a very good job as a selection panel, but reality is we were totally outplayed," Hilditch told Sydney Morning Herald.
• Gambhir grabs eyeballs with Rs 11.04 crore KKR deal
• Bangalore: Gautam Gambhir turned out to be the biggest draw in auctions with the SRK co-owned KKR buying him for USD 2.4 mn (approx Rs 11.04 crore) for the fourth edition of IPL.
• Davydenko beats Nadal to reach Qatar Open final
• Doha: Fourth-seeded Davydenko won 6-3, 6-2 in 84 minutes against an uncharacteristically slow and sluggish Nadal, who had a fever earlier this week.
• Title-chasers Man City complete Dzeko signing
• Manchester: The 24-year-old, who is believed to have cost City 27 million pounds (32.5 million euros) has signed a four-and-a-half year contract and has been handed the number 10 shirt at the Eastlands club.
• Pakistan 235 for 4, 40 behind NZ in first test
• Hamilton: Shafiq posted 74, the highest score of the match so far, and Misbah reached 50 as Pakistan ground towards a first innings lead on a day on which only seven wickets fell.
• Waugh wants to rebuild Aus cricket but not as a coach
• Melbourne: "I do keep in contact with quite a few Australian players behind the scenes but I'd listen to whatever role came up," the 45-year-old cricketer added.
• Press call for heads to roll after Ashes farce
• Sydney: Cricket Australia (CA) has promised a review of the failed campaign after England won their third Test by an innings in Sydney yesterday to take an Ashes series in Australia for the first time in 24 years.
• Zulqarnain Haider urges PCB to clear his dues
• Karachi: Zulqarnain, who attended an important hearing of the British home department in London on Thursday pertaining to his asylum application in UK, said that before leaving the team in Dubai in November last year, he had featured in two T20 and four ODIs against South Africa in UAE.

 

 10.01.2011,Monday 

National

• UPA government may "collapse" anytime, says Venkaiah Naidu
• Guntur: Naidu said launch of a political party by former Chief Minister Y S R Reddy's son, Jagan Mohan, will hasten the end of the Congress in Andhra Pradesh.
• Over 7 kg of charas seized, one arrested in J&K
• Srinagar: Shabir Ahmad Waza, a resident of Wathoora, was arrested at Chattargam, 23 kms from here, they said, adding that 7.5 Kgs of raw charas and 10 grams of pure charas worth Rs 20,000 was recovered from his possession.
• 'Reports quoting JK govt on Chinese intrusion in Leh baseless'
• New Delhi: "Government have seen media reports alleging Chinese troop intrusion in the Demchok area of Leh District in Jammu & Kashmir. These reports are baseless and do not conform to fact.
• MCD seals, demolishes 15 unauthorised structures
• New Delhi: Three properties were targeted in Lado Sarai of which two were sealed too, officials said.
• No let up in cold wave in Punjab and Haryana
• Chandigarh: The maximum day temperature of Chandigarh dipped to 7.7 degrees Celsius, 12 notches below normal while day temperatures in Shimla and Srinagar were 11.3 and 10 degree Celsius respectively.
• Additional CCTVs installed at Varanasi blast sites
• Varanasi: The installations are part of administrative security measures following the blast that ripped through Varanasi when ceremonial ''aarti'' of the river Ganga was being performed there.
• 103 arrested, 25 cases registered: Meghalaya DGP
• Shillong: Around 26 villages have been affected in Meghalaya and some 1,500 houses burnt, Kakati said in a media briefing.
• Prima facie 2G allocation lacked transparency: Sibal
• New Delhi: "Yes, I believe so. We believe that the allocation of spectrum was wrongly made in terms of implementation of the policy. Otherwise, I would not have a one-man committee of the retired Supreme Court judge to look into the matter," he told Karan Thapar on "India Tonight" programme to be telecast on CNBC TV 18 channel.
• Cong, SP supporters fight as Rahul visits Allahabad
• Allahabad: The activists of SP''s youth wing, who were protesting Congress-led UPA government''s "failure" to restore students'' union in Allahabad University which was granted central status in 2005, shouted slogans asking Gandhi to "go back".
• Eight more die in UP due to cold, toll reaches 89
• Lucknow: Two persons died due to cold in Hardoi and as many were reported dead in Kannauj,Siddharth Nagar , while one death was reported from Gonda and Fatehpur.
• Seven killed, 43 injured as bus falls into deep gorge
• Aizawl: Deputy Commission of Lunglei Margaret Zohmingthangi told PTI over phone that the bus carrying 51 passengers and plying between Putlungasih village and Lunglei town rolled down into a deep gorge due to non functioning of the steering at around 8 AM.
• Bihar government to fully cooperate with CBI: Nitish
• Patna: "The state government will fully cooperate with CBI in its probe into the MLA killing case... I will request that all aspects involved in the case be probed," Kumar told reporters on the sideline of his ''Janata Darbar'' here.
• I-T asks SRK to pay tax on the gifted villa
• Mumbai: The 45-year-old actor received the villa as a gift from a Dubai-based company during assessment year 2008-09 for plugging a real estate project, IT sources said.
• 'Ajmer blast carried out to deter Hindus from dargah visit'
• New Delhi: Ajmer blast was carried out to deter Hindus from going to shrine and the act was carried out by a group from both majority and minority communities,Aseemanand has said.
• Man sentenced to 14 yrs term for raising terror fund
• New Delhi: While sentencing 52-year-old convict Jafar Umar Khan, Additional Sessions Judge R K Gauba also imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on him.
• Jaganmohan Reddy to hold fast in Delhi tomorrow
• New Delhi: The former Congress MP from Kadapa, who had resigned from the party on November last, will arrive here late tonight by a special train along with his supporters and farmers.
• Thackeray undergoes routine check up at Lilavati
• Mumbai: "Thackeray had a routine health check up done this morning and left for home in an hour. He is fine," hospital spokesperson Dr Narendra Trivedi told PTI.
• 3 pilgrims killed, 22 injured in mishap
• Sirsi (K''taka): A group of about 40 persons hailing from Nardpalli near Secunderabad were travelling in the bus when the mishap occurred, police said.
• 14 kg heroin smuggled from Pak seized
• Amritsar: On a tip off, Sukhbir Singh, resident of border village Sarain Amant Khan, was arrested with 14 kg heroin and an imported automatic pistol of 30 bore, two magazines along with 12 live cartridges other arms and ammunition, an official of Special Operation Cell of Punjab police said.
• Additional CCTVs installed at Varanasi blast sites
• Varanasi: The installations are part of administrative security measures following the blast that ripped through Varanasi when ceremonial ''aarti'' of the river Ganga was being performed there.
• Can visit Delhi in 3rd week of Jan: Buddhadeb
• Kolkata: "Chief Minister in a letter to the Home minister informed that he will be able to visit Delhi in the third week of this month," a press release issued by the CM''s office here said.
• Construction in restricted area reason for 'intrusion'
• New Delhi: Singh said the "so-called" intrusions take place due to perceptional differences about the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China, an issue which is being addressed by the two countries through discussion.
• Cold wave sweeping north India leaves 2 more dead
• New Delhi/Lucknow: Two persons, including an 85-year-old man, died due to cold in Uttar Pradesh''s Hardoi district yesterday, officials in Lucknow said. Cold conditions in the state have left 83 people dead this season.
• Rs 20 lakh looted from builder's house in MP
• Indore (MP): The trio entered Ashwini Giri''s house in Sudama Nagar locality and looted the amount after stabbing his wife Bindia with a knife, they said.
• Man sentenced to death for brutally killing father
• New Delhi: Additional Sessions Judge R K Gauba awarded capital punishment to Nabi Karim resident Jitender, terming his crime as the "rarest of the rare" warranting nothing less than the gallows.
• BSF to guard unfenced border areas in Tripura
• Agartala: "The hangar is ready at the Agartala airport and the chopper will be pressed into service latest by early next month. It would be used mainly for aerial surveillance of about 55 km unfenced border in the remote and hilly areas having difficult terrains," Inspector General of Tripura Frontier of BSF S K Jain, said.
• 'Killings and political clashes totally unacceptable'
• Kolkata: "It is very unfortunate and totally unacceptable that every day there are killings and political clashes," Mukherjee told reporters on the sidelines of a programme at the Indian Institute of Management at Joka near here.
• Security, crowd control stepped at Sabarimala
• Sabarimala: Kerala Government and temple authorities are making preparations to ensure smooth conclusion of the two-month long pilgrimage, as the arrival of devotees is expected to go up considerably in the coming days.
• Shoot-at-sight orders on Assam side, curfew on
• Shillong: Official sources said shoot-at-sight orders were issued by the Assam government after a high-level security meeting at Dispur last night.
• Vehicular traffic allowed on Jammu-Srinagar highway
• Jammu: "One way traffic has been allowed from Jammu to Srinagar today. There would no traffic from Srinagar to Jammu today," police officials at Police Control Room said.
• Seven trains cancelled, 65 running late due to fog
• New Delhi: The cancelled trains include the Patna-bound Rajdhani Express, Lucknow-bound Shatabdi Express, Howrah-bound Poorva Express and Darbhanga-bound Swatantrata Sainani Express, said a Northern Railway spokesperson.
• Foggy conditions prevail in Punjab, Haryana
• Chandigarh: Dense fog reduced visibility to just few metres in the region hampering movement of rail and road traffic, officials said.
• Three killed, 25 injured in road mishap
• Jaipur: The mishap occurred last night near Nakor village when the devotees were returning from a temple.
• Audiobooks gaining popularity in Indian markets
• Audiobooks have been popular among children but now famous books and novels are being converted into this format for adults too.
• Mount Abu coldest in Rajasthan with - 4.2 deg C
• Jaipur: The minimum settled at 1.1 deg C in Pilani, while Sikar recorded a low of 2 deg C.
• Tussle between govt, oppn expected to escalate
• New Delhi/Guwahati: In its first conclave in the north-east, BJP appears to be buoyed by the spectacular Assembly election victory in Bihar and the ITAT order in the Bofors pay-offs case.
• Two more persons die in UP due to cold, toll reaches 83
• Lucknow: Lucknow recorded a minimum of 5 degrees Celsius, which was two notches below normal, while Varanasi recorded a low of 4 degree C, four notches below normal.
• Metro trains on Gurgaon Line running at slow speed
• New Delhi: The trains were running at a speed of 20 km per hour between INA and AIIMS Metro stations on Line 2 (Jehangirpuri-HUDA City Centre). Normally, metro trains run at a speed of 40 km per hour.
• Icy winds leave Delhiites shivering
• New Delhi: The minimum temperature fell to 4.7 degree Celsius, two degrees below normal for this time, from yesterday''s five degrees. Yesterday was the coldest day in the past five years with the maximum sliding to 11 degrees.
• Four children injured in explosion
• New Delhi: The incident was reported from a factory in Okhla Phase-II at around 9 AM and two fire tenders were rushed to the spot, fire brigade officials said.

 International

• China introduces rural pension scheme in Tibet
• Beijing: The government-subsidised scheme, which began in November 2009 in seven of Tibet''s counties, cities and districts, has been extended to all 73 counties, cities and districts by November last year, a spokesman with the region''s human resources and social security department at the annual regional people''s congress session said.
• WikiLeaks losing half a million euros a week: Assange
• Geneva: When asked about the pressure put on him over the website''s move, Assange told Swiss newspapers Tribune de Geneve and 24 Heures: "From a personal point of view, no. I would say that the pressure reinforces my determination.
• 4 deaths confirmed in flood-ravaged NE Australia
• Police confirmed the deaths of a woman and boy in Toowoomba along with that of a man and boy in nearby town Murphy''s Creek, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
• Envoy denies Kabul to hold peace council with Pak
• Kabul: A group from President Hamid Karzai''s High Council for Peace (HCP), led by former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, held high-level talks in the Pakistani capital last week.
• Flash floods kill 4 in water-weary NE Australia
• Brisbane: The raging torrent of muddy water picked up cars and tossed them like toys, carried away furniture as it washed through stores and prompted scores of emergency calls as it swamped Toowoomba, a city of about 90,000 in Queensland state in the northeast.
• Pope asks Pakistan to scrap its blasphemy law
• Vatican City: Pope Benedict XVI called on Pak to scrap a blasphemy law after the murder of the governor of Punjab, saying the legislation was a pretext for "acts of injustice and violence".
• Iran plane crash toll rises to 77, black box found
• Tehran: The pilots of the Boeing-727, operated by Iran''s national airline and carrying 104 passengers and crew, reported a technical failure to the control tower before trying to make the landing last night, state-run TV reported.
• Onion exports to India from Pakistan to resume
• Islamabad: This is due to adequate production of the vegetable despite the floods that devastated agricultural lands across Pakistan last year, an official of the ministry told PTI.
• Pakistan's release of militant stirs questions
• Islamabad: He was suspected of involvement in the attempted assassination of two Pakistani leaders.
• Three Afghan police killed in Taliban car bomb
• Kandahar: The attack comes three days after a Taliban suicide bomber killed a police commander and 16 others at a public bath in the same district.
• NATO probes possible friendly fire in Afghan
• Kabul: The incident happened yesterday in central Afghanistan''s Day Kundi province when a patrol of coalition troops came across nine armed men they believed were setting up an ambush, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
• New Myanmar parliament to meet Jan 31: state TV
• Yangon: The two-chamber parliament will meet in the capital Naypyidaw, while new regional legislatures will convene at the same time, government-controlled television reported, quoting an order from junta chief Senior General Than Shwe.
• NATO kills more than 10 insurgents in Afghan
• Kabul: The coalition said in a statement today that its forces, along with their Afghan counterparts, were searching for a Taliban leader who was the district leader of Khanabad in Kunduz province. The coalition says he is linked to Taliban leaders in Pakistan and is involved in aiding the insurgents with roadside bombs and weapons.
• SKorea to install sensors near NKorea sea border
• Seoul: The Maeil business newspaper said the military plans to place the sensors near frontier islands in the Yellow Sea, the scene of bloody naval battles in 1999, 2002 and November 2009.
• Channels fined for airing interview of Taseer's killer
• Islamabad: The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority imposed the fines on Samaa and Waqt channels for airing the interview of Mumtaz Qadri, who gunned down Taseer is Islamabad last week for criticising the controversial blasphemy law.
• Taliban target girls' school in northwest Pak
• Peshawar: The girls'' primary school at Landi Kotal in Khyber Agency collapsed after the blast.
• China's death sentence rules to face extra scrutiny
• The Supreme People''s Court (SPC) will overturn death sentences in cases where evidence was collected by illegal means to further limit the application of capital punishment, a judicial official said.
• SKorea's labor force to shrink by 32 pc by 2050
• Hong Kong: The sharp decrease will likely have an effect of reducing South Korea''s annual economic growth rate by 1 to 1.3 percentage points during the period from 2020 through 2050, the HSBC estimate showed.
• Israel launches twin air strikes on Gaza: army
• Jerusalem: The strikes targeted "centres of terrorist activities, which have been hit", said the spokesman, referring to projectiles fired from Gaza over the weekend.
• Inter-Korean dialogue must include nuke issue
• Seoul: After issuing a New Year''s message on January 1 calling for better cross-border relations, Pyongyang has since made back-to-back proposals through different organisations for inter-Korean dialogue to ease tensions.
• Iran rights lawyer jailed for 11 years: family
• Tehran: "They told my wife''s lawyer yesterday that she has been sentenced to 11 years in jail and banned for 20 years from working as a lawyer and leaving Iran," Reza Khandan told AFP.
• South Korea, Japan to discuss military pact
• Seoul: Seoul and Tokyo are important trading and diplomatic partners, but the possibility of such a military treaty is a sensitive topic in South Korea, where many people still harbour strong resentment against Japan''s 35-year occupation.
• Up to 77 dead in Iran plane crash as toll rises
• Tehran: The pilots of the Boeing-727, operated by Iran''s national airline, reported a technical failure to the control tower before trying to make the emergency landing in a snowstorm Sunday night, state-run TV reported.
• Kuwait to unfurl world's longest flag: Report
• Dubai: The 2,000-metre-long flag will be unveiled during a military parade to be held under the patronage of Emir Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah in Kuwait City on National Day, the ''Gulf News'' quoted Shaikha Amthal Al Ahmad Al Sabah, President of Volunteer Work Centre, as saying.
• Indo-Bangla talks on Teesta water sharing begins
• Dhaka: India''s Water Resources Secretary Dhruv Vijai Singh and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Mohammad Wahiduzzaman met at the state guest house of Meghna this morning, a spokesman of the Indo-Bangal Joint River Commission said.
• US-China resume high-level defence dialogue
• Beijing: US, China resumed high-level defence talks to improve relations in the field and iron out differences over each other's strategic perceptions in regional and global arena.
• Trans-Alaska oil pipeline remains shut down
• Anchorage (Alaska): Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. says the leak was discovered Saturday. It appears to be coming from a section of piping encased in concrete next to Pump Station 1 - the first pump station on the 800-mile pipeline.
• Haitians in camps down to 810,000: IOM
• Port-au-Prince: The UN group noted that 1.5 million people lost their homes in the January 12, 2010 quake, and as recently as September there were 1.35 million people living in the makeshift refugee camps.
• Algeria says 'turned the page' on riots
• Algiers: A day after the government imposed urgent cuts on import duties and taxes in a bid to curb soaring food prices, witnesses said calm appeared to return to all cities and towns that had been hit by rioting.

 Business

• Nagarjuna Fertilisers board approves major plan
• Hyderabad: "The scheme envisages demerger of the oil business undertaking of NFCL into NORL (Nagarjuna Oil Refinery Ltd and merger of residual NFCL and Ikisan Ltd (Ikisan) into KFL (Kakinada Fertilisers Ltd)," the company said in a notification to BSE.
• PM to chair a meet to discuss food inflation tomorrow
• New Delhi: Senior ministers including Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahuwalia are expected to attend the meeting.
• Pakistan to provide soft-term credit to Sri Lanka
• Islamabad: Zardari made the remarks during a meeting in Karachi with a Sri Lankan parliamentary delegation led by Speaker Chamal Jayantha Rajapakse.
• Consensus in NAC on food security, says member
• New Delhi: "We have reached a consensus on the final framework of the Food Security Bill," a NAC member said on condition of anonymity.
• Coca-Cola, ISB sign MoU to set up retail academy
• Mumbai: The academy will impart specialised programme to train mid-level professionals in retail management in India even as the sector is expanding at a rapid pace.
• Railways sign MoU with RINL for modern axle plant
• New Delhi: The Rs 300-crore project, with the state-of-the-art facility, will manufacture and supply rail axles for goods train wagons to meet the growing requirement of the Indian Railways.
• Gold moves up on local demand, silver declines
• Mumbai: Meanwhile, silver declined on speculative profit taking.
• Deal good for Patni, better for iGate: Analysts
• Bangalore: "The deal is good for Patni, which for the last two years has been undergoing a period of uncertainty, giving it a clear roadmap for growth and competing with the bigger players," Gartner Senior Research Analyst Arup Roy told PTI.
• Onion prices to ease as new crop hits mkts: Pawar
• New Delhi: "A new crop has started coming from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and some parts of Maharashtra, which is a good sign.
• Patni loses momentum, ends 0.82 pc up on BSE
• Mumbai: Patni settled the day at Rs 463.85, up 0.82 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange today. During the day, the stock gained 3.84 per cent to touch an intra-day high of Rs 477.80.
• Sensex falls for 5th session, shedding 468 pts
• Mumbai: The key index has plummeted by a whopping 1,337 points or 6.5 per cent in five straight sessions.
• Pak govt divided on lifting onion export ban
• A meeting was held in the Commerce Ministry on the issue and there was no no decision.
• IT search in Delhi, NCR to detect onion hoarding
• New Delhi: The Income Tax dept surveyed business premises of big onion and vegetable traders including at Azadpur wholesale market to detect hoarding and illegal profiteering.
• RBI to hike rates by 50 bps by March to ease prices
• New Delhi: The bank said in its report that it expects the first rate hike of 25 basis points to be announced by RBI at its January 25 policy review.
• Gold, silver surge on global cues, pick up in demand
• New Delhi: Silver gained Rs 175 to Rs 44,800 per kg on increased offtake by industrial units and coin makers, while gold rose by Rs 50 to Rs 20,650 per 10 grams on local demand.
• Fortis Global to be listed in overseas bourses
• Kolkata: "We will definitely go for listing on overseas exchanges," Fortis Global Healthcare chairman Malvinder Mohan Singh said here last night.
• I-T asks SRK to pay tax on villa gifted by Dubai Co
• Mumbai: He received the villa as a gift from a Dubai-based company during assessment year 2008-09 for promoting a real estate project.
• India seeks FSAP by IMF and World Bank
• Kolkata: "We have voluntarily sought a full-fledged Financial Sector Assessment Programme to be conducted by the IMF and the World Bank", Mukherjee told the International Financial Conference at IIM here.
• Tata DOCOMO rolls out T24 mobile service
• Ahmedabad: "It is an unique marketing alliance between a retailer group and telecom operator that offers customers free talk time on purchases or recharges made at any of the Future group outlets," Tata DOCOMO COO Gujarat Nipun Sharma said.
• DuPont to buy Denmark's Danisco for $5.8 bn
• New York: Both companies have presence in India.
• iGate acquires majority stake in Patni Computer for USD1.22 bn
• Bangalore: iGate will buy 45.6 pc of shares of the three founder- Narendra Patni, Gajendra Patni and Ashok Patni-along with the 17.4 per cent stake of private equity firm General Atlantic.
• PE firms may raise USD 300-bn in 2011 globally
• New York: "We are expecting fund raising to exceed USD 300 billion in 2011, with a more dramatic increase coming towards the end of the year as top quartile managers close significant funds that have been launched recently or are in the pipeline," Preqin Head of Communications Tim Friedman said.
• Nashik onion traders on strike, prices to rise further
• New Delhi: "The contracting traders have said that it would be unviable to sell below Rs 30/kg as the buying cost of onion is higher than that," Nashik-based District Deputy Registrar Cooperative Societies Bajirao Shinde told PTI.
• Import of sensitive items rise by 14 pc from Apr-Oct
• New Delhi: The country had imported such items worth Rs 35,487 crore in the same period of last fiscal, official data said today.
• IDC, CyberMedia to end 23-yr partnership in IT
• New Delhi: "Effective February 28, 2011, the two companies will move forward on their individual paths after a long-lasting, mutually beneficial partnership. CyberMedia will explore diversification of its research activities into IT and other domains. IDC will expand its research business in India with a direct presence," read a joint statement.
• Reliance Life to train aspiring insurance agents
• New Delhi: "We will train about 1 lakh aspirants to help them become certified life insurance agents within a year by providing them with the necessary knowledge, skills that will be required to be successful in this field," RLIC Executive Director and President Malay Ghosh said.
• IDC, CyberMedia to end 24-yr partnership
• New Delhi: "Effective February 28, 2011, the two companies will move forward on their individual paths after a long-lasting, mutually beneficial partnership. CyberMedia will explore diversification of its research activities into IT and other domains. IDC will expand its research business in India with a direct presence," read a joint statement.
• Comviva enters into partnership with airtel Bangla
• New Delhi: The company will offer messaging solutions under its Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), Short Message Service Center (SMSC) and BMG (Bulk Messaging Gateway) portfolio, Comviva said in a statement.
• Haryana to give priority to auto sec in alloting land
• Chandigarh: Gurgaon-Manesar-Bawal region of the state has been identified as an auto hub by the Centre and the state government is taking initiatives to further boost this sector, said Haryana Industries Minister Mahender Partap Singh in a press release.
• Ex-CII official joins Indian Business Leaders Forum
• Dubai: The forum announced that it has appointed C.S. Raghavan as Executive Director who will be responsible for the growth of the Forum and will manage its activities including formation of a consortium in the near future.
• Vipul MedCare eyes Indians in Gulf region
• Dubai: With a coverage network span in 4,000 hospitals across India, the company now plans to market its packages to local insurers in Gulf to provide group health insurance benefits to Indian living there.
• Rupee inches up by 1 paise against US dollar
• Mumbai: Forex dealers said dollar's weakness in the Asian markets helped the rise of rupee, but weak opening on the stock market capped its gains.
• Sensex down 221 points on interest rate hike fears
• Mumbai: The 30-share index of the Bombay Stock Exchange that tumbled 868 points in the previous four sessions, slid by another 221.58 points today to 19,470.23 level at the opening trade, with all the sectoral indices trading in red.
• Nashik traders not to purchase onions for 2 days
• Nashik: Nashik District Onion Traders Association at its meeting held at Umrane took this decision, said Suresh Parikh, onion trader.

Sports

• Somnath Chatterjee bats for IPL discard Ganguly
• Kolkata: Former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee said the ace left-hander was a victim of politics by the private teams who had opted not to bid for Ganguly during the two-day IPL players auctions that eneded in Bangalore yesterday.
• Tahir confident of finding a place in Protea WC squad
• Tahir, who recently qualified to play for South Africa, has replaced batsman Jonathan Vandiar in the 30-man preliminary World Cup squad, which will be jointly co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh from February 19 to April 2.
• Faisal stuns Shahbaz, Manudev surprises Rafath
• Mumbai: Faisal overcame a shaky start to cruise to an impressive 5-80, 70-22, 69-8, 64-38, 44-58, 56-16 win in the best-of-seven frames elite handicap round robin encounter.
• Asiad medallists Merchant, Mehta get cash awards
• Mumbai: Also getting recognised for his role in the shaping of the Indian squad was coach Sanjay Sawant, a media release said here today.
• Pakistan-born Tahir added to S Africa's WC squad
• Johannesburg: Cricket South Africa said the 31-year-old Tahir, a former Pakistan A international, has replaced batsman Jonathan Vandiar in its 30-man preliminary squad for the February 19-April 2 event in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - where spin bowling on slow, turning wickets is likely to be crucial to teams'' hopes.
• Vettori refuses to blame IPL for NZ's dismal show
• Hamilton: Vettori clarified that the high-profile auction was not a distraction and that could not be attributed to the Black Caps'' dismal show.
• Lee may quit if not selected for World Cup
• Melbourne: Lee while expressing his desire to lead the Australian bowling attack during the mega event said, "I hope that I am in it, and want to lead the attack for Australia." Lee, who has already announced retirement from the Test cricket, was last month named in the provisional 30-man squad which is supposed to be altered to a 15 member unit during this month.
• New Zealand media irate after Pak thrashing
• Wellington: "New year - same old horror story," the back page of the New Zealand Herald declared, adding that yesterday''s thumping 10-wicket defeat was a depressing start to a much-trumpeted new era under coach John Wright.
• Fill my shoes: Makhaya Ntini to Tsotsobe
• Durban: It was as much about emotion and show business as it was about cricket when Ntini brought curtains down on his illustrious international career at the end of the one-off Twenty20 match between India and South Africa here last night.
• KKR to find a role for Ganguly: Shah Rukh Khan 
• Durban: Kolkata Knight Riders'' owner Shah Rukh Khan today said he would try and find a role for Sourav Ganguly in his IPL team after the former India skipper remained unsold.
• Andy Flower warns English players of IPL effect
• London: According to Flower, it''s more important that the players keep themselves fresh for national duty instead of playing in the cash-rich league.
• 'Availability affected our chances at IPL auction'
• London: Only seven players from England were bought by the Franchisees and Ashes hero Kevin Pietersen was sold at a lower price than what he got from his previous owner.
• Christian stunned with contract with Deccan
• Melbourne: Christian, who has played just three international Twenty20 games, was snapped up for a price 18 times that of his modest base price of USD 50,000 and is still in disbelief that he managed to attract the buyers so much.
• Ponting backs review of Australian game
• Sydney: Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland said on Friday that the game would undergo a thorough review of all facets following the humiliating 3-1 Test series loss to fierce rivals England.
• Coach sacked after Syria stun Saudi Arabia 2-1
• Doha: The 2007 finalists and three-time champions announced that Nasser Al Johar will take over from the 50-year-old Portuguese for the remainder of the showpiece event in Doha.
• Udinese hold Milan in eight-goal thriller
• Rome: Udinese led 3-1 at one stage and also moved into injury time with a 4-3 lead but Milan were rewarded for a never-say-die attitude that saw them snatch a share of the spoils.
• Ronaldo hat-trick seals Madrid comeback win
• Madrid: Portuguese star Ronaldo took his season''s tally to 22 league goals with strikes in the eighth, 44th and 78th minutes after third-place Villarreal had threatened an upset after twice going in front in a pulsating first half at the Santiago Bernabeu.
• Franchisees may start signing uncapped players
• New Delhi: The signing of uncapped players will give a final shape to the squads of 10 teams in the fray.
• Fourteen preliminary-stage matches for IPL teams
• New Delhi: All the 10 IPL teams will play a total of 14 games each in the preliminary stage of the fourth edition, twice against five outfits but only once against the four other Franchisees.

 

 

• • International
  • Read with synopsis

• Qaeda plotting Mumbai-style terror attack in UK
• Kanishka bombing: Inderjit Reyat gets 9 years in jail
• Krishna arrives in Kabul; to meet top Afghan leaders
• 2 held  for influencing Qadri kill Pak Punjab Governor
• Jail for sexual assault for Pakistan-origin gang leaders
• Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries meet in Bhutan next month
• Iran says can make own nuclear fuel plates and rods
• Egypt's Grand Mufti on first ever visit to India
• Four killed in South Sudan attack ahead of referendum
• School website turns a porno shocker in China
• India concerned over LTTE radio equipment: cable
• Third package ignites at Washington postal facility
• Governor wins rerun election in Nigeria's oil rich state
• Radical Iraqi cleric urges resistance against America
• Chile's recognition of Palestine useless, says Israel
• South separatists kill two Yemen troops: official
• China to build tower similar to Dubai's Burj Khalifa
• 'Perpetrators of Samjhauta blast be brought to justice'
• US demanding Twitter account information: Cables 
• Six perons dead in communist clashes in Philippines
• Pak court adjourns trial of 26/11 suspects till Jan 22
• Pak, Indian MPs call for efforts to remove trust deficit
• Two sects clash in Bangladesh over control of mosque
• Madhesi party withdraws its 4 ministers from Nepal govt
• China plans to allow private jets to fly in low-altitude
• Argentina: 1K workers found in sub-human conditions
• 'EU diplomats in Dhaka divided over war crimes trial'
• Nepali airline's flights on Kathmandu-Lucknow route
• Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries to meet in Bhutan
• US to provide more military aid to Pakistan: report
• US ambassador expected in Syria this month
• New Jersey police team cancels Gujarat visit
• US concerned about increasing extremism in Pak
• 'Sino-India growth due to the 6-decade peace in Asia'
• Racy Catholic calendar angers Spain church leaders
• 'US, India working to address hunger, poverty in world'
• N Korea reopens cooperation office, offers talk dates
• Gunmen abduct two Frenchmen in Niger: witnesses
• US, Japan to continue close consultation on NKorea
• EU charges former Kosovo rebels with war crimes
• Israeli soldier killed in friendly fire at Gaza border
• Envelope ignites at US post office
• WikiLeaks' Assange signs deal to tell life story
• Chile recognises Palestine as 'sovereign' state
• House takes first step toward health care repeal
• Russia ready to ratify US arms treaty: Kosachyov
• Red Cross emblem dropped from UK production
• Obama names political veteran to top economic post
• UN rights chief sees warnings in religion attacks
• Investigators in US try to trace 2 fiery packages
• Nigeria: Ruling party wins rerun state election
• NATO to deploy radar planes to Afghanistan