Sri Lanka, India agree to strengthen nuclear cooperation

Sri Lanka and India today held the first round of talks between the two countries on comprehensive civil nuclear cooperation in New Delhi and agreed to strengthen bilateral nuclear cooperation , a joint statement issued by the two countries said.

Girl rejects love proposal, murdered

Irked over his love proposal being rejected, a 21-year-old youth along with his brother and associate allegedly abducted a teenaged girl from near her house here and murdered her. Ravi Kumar, his brother Rahul and associate Vinod were arrested yesterday for their involvement in the abduction and murder of the 18-year-old girl, police said here today.

India sends relief material for Sri Lanka's flood victims

Responding to a request from Sri Lankan government India is preparing to dispatch relief material for the flood-affected people in the country, Indian media reported.

64 killed, 80 injured in Delhi building collapse

The death toll in the east Delhi building collapse on Tuesday mounted to 64 as scores of rescue workers struggled to pull out those trapped in the debris of one of the worst such incidents in the capital, PTI reported.

Centre puts Headley's targets on fresh alert

Though American terrorist David Coleman Headley has been in Chicago jail for almost a year, the targets recceed and filmed by him in India before his arrest continue to give sleepless nights to security agencies. The Centre on Sunday - the day of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony - asked all the states to put such targets under extra security cover, and step up their overall vigilance in view of general threats.

Mattoo case: SC commutes Santosh Singh's death sentence to life

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of Santosh Kumar Singh in the 14-year-old Priyadarshini Mattoo rape and murder case but reduced the death sentence to life imprisonment, saying certain things were in his favour.

Delhi Police on high alert, People appaled to maintain Peace & Harmony

delhi Police is on high alert in view of Ayodhya verdict which is to be announced at 3:30 PM today. Ayodhya case is One of India’s most sensitive and longest peniding court case. Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court will announce the verdict on Ramjanmbhoomi – Babri Masjid title suit. Verdict of Ayodhya dispute would be updated on the official website of the Allahabad High Court.

Girls in love 'marry', seek protection

Two girls — aged 22 and 21 — submitted an affidavit in the Mayur Vihar police station on Wednesday night claiming that they are living together

India ready to give more aid but Pak silent

Even as more floods threaten to inundate Pakistan, the government there is reluctant to avail of India's offer of assistance.
India indicated on Monday that it was willing to give more assistance over the $5 million it has already pledged. "We can and are willing to do much more," senior sources in the government said.

'Pastors trafficking NE children for church grants and foreign donations

Promising proper education, pastors are trafficking children from the north-eastern states to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka with an oblique motive to get grants from churches and abroad, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights said in a damning report to the Supreme Court.

Our soldiers being fed substandard food: CAG

An Army marches on its stomach, said Napolean Bonaparte. But the 1.13-million strong Indian Army, the third largest in the world, marches largely on sub-standard food and rations, well past their consume-by date.

11 die as rain plunges Delhi into misery

At least 11 people dead, traffic snarls lasting up to 5 hours, roads submerged in knee-deep water with traffic lights on the blink in key intersections, hundreds of fallen trees and rainwater inside homes — three hours of rain is all it took to expose the chinks in Delhi's infrastructure ahead of the Commonwealth Games.

Home ministry recommends death penalty for Afzal Guru: Sources

NEW DELHI: Home ministry has recommended death penalty for Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru in its report submitted to the President, sources said.
The government has asked Rashtrapati Bhavan to reject Afzal Guru's mercy petition, Times Now quoted sources as saying.

'India can't support Iran against UN sanctions'

NEW DELHI: India may not have any option but to implement the latest set of restrictions approved by the UNSC against Iran despite New Delhi’s constant assertions that it will not support any sanctions on that country which impact the common people.

Sri Lanka signs seven pacts with India

Sri Lanka and India Wednesday inked seven agreements on key areas including security, women's affairs, culture, power and infrastructure in the presence of Mahinda Rajapaksa and Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, President's Media Unit said.

Ban on LTTE extended by another two years: Govt

Government on Friday extended the ban on LTTE by another two years following intelligence reports that remnants of the Sri Lankan Tamil terror outfit were trying to re-group in Tamil Nadu.

India refuses entry to mother of slain Tamil leader

The ailing mother of slain Sri Lankan Tamil rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was denied entry to India for medical treatment and was deported immediately on arrival from Malaysia, media reports said Saturday.

Actress in Delhi godman sex racket

New Delhi, Mar 5: Amid the heated controversy over Swami Nithyananda's alleged sexcapades with Tamil Actress Ranjitha, suspected involvement of a TV actress in the sex racket of another godman Shiv Murat Dwivedi has hit the headlines.


!Shiv Murat Dwivedi was arrested on Friday, Feb 26 for allegedly running a sex racket in the capital. A week after the arrest, it has emerged that a TV actress and item girl was part of his racket.


Times of India reports that along with Diwedi, the suspected actress and five other women
were arrested in 2003 by Noida police.

"We are in the process of obtaining her dossier from the Noida police,'' a police officer told the newspaper.

The godman reportedly has scores of other cases tainting his past. Another media report suggests that this is the fifth case against Godman.

“He was convicted and a monetary fine was slapped against him. This is the fifth case against him. In 1997, Dwivedi was arrested on charges of running a prostitution racket in Lajpat Nagar. The next year, he was arrested for dacoity in Badarpur. In 2003, he was arrested from Noida Sector-24 under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act and was also charged under the Gangster Act,” is quoted as saying in a report in The Indian Express.

Centre mulling a reward for Pune blast clues

NEW DELHI: The Centre is mulling a reward of Rs one crore to anyone who gives clues about terrorists who may have planted the bomb in the German Bakery, a favourite eating joint of foreigners.


Top Home Ministry officials said the reward proposal is being considered at the highest level and may take a decision in favour of it soon.

"If we declare the reward, we will tell the people that whoever shares any information about the perpetrators of the blast, his or her identity would be protected. We would not even ask his name but give the reward. But information has to be correct," an official said.

The move is being considered in the light of investigators still groping for vital clues about the terrorists behind the powerful blasts.

India successfully test Agni-III missile

Balasore/New Delhi: India on Sunday successfully test-fired its indigenous Agni-III ballistic missile with a range of 3500 kms from the Wheeler Island off the coast of Orissa, making the nuclear-capable platform ready for induction into the armed forces.

"The fourth test-firing of the Agni-III missile was carried out at 1050 hours today. It was for the full range and it hit the target with pin-point accuracy and met all the mission objectives," Defence Ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar said here.
Two Navy ships located near the target tracked and witnessed the missile hitting it accurately, he said.

During today's launch, the missile was fired from a mobile rail launcher, sources in Balasore said.

Defence Minister A K Antony congratulated DRDO chief V K Saraswat and the scientists involved in the Agni-III project on the "remarkable success" of the missile test.

The defence spokesman said the launch was part of the pre-induction trial and "now the missile system will be fully inducted into the armed forces."

A number of radars and electro-optical tracking systems along the coast of Orissa monitored the path of the missile and evaluated all the parameters in real-time, Kar said.

Equipped with a state-of-the-art advanced computer, the navigation system used for guiding the missile to its target is the "first of its kind", he said.

The high performance indigenous ring laser gyro-based navigation system was a success, sources in Balasore said.

The 17-metre long marker pen like Agni-III is 2 metres in diameter and has a two-stage solid propellant system with a pay load capability of 1.5 tonnes.

"During the course of the flight, the missile reached a peak height of 350 kms and re-entered the atmosphere successfully tolerating the skin temperatures of nearly 3000 degree Celsius," Kar said.

The first trial of Agni-III was conducted on July 9, 2006 and it had ended in a failure. But the subsequent two tests on April 12, 2007 and May 7, 2008 were successful.

Mission Director Avinash Chander and Project Director V G Sekaran guided and controlled the complete missile integration and launch activities and DRDO Chief Saraswat oversaw the launch operations.