Russian tycoon punches billionaire on TV

Russian tycoon punches billionaire on TV:

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A Nano car worth Rs 22 crore

A Nano car worth Rs 22 crore:

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'I have never cared about my image': Modi

'I have never cared about my image': Modi:

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'Stockholm syndrome in Gujarat': Salman Khurshid

'Stockholm syndrome in Gujarat': Salman Khurshid:

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Earthquake toll rises to 60 in India; rescue teams land at quake's epicentre Mangan

Earthquake toll rises to 60 in India; rescue teams land at quake's epicentre Mangan:

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Rahul Gandhi visits grieving family, Mayawati hasn't met them

1. Lakhimpur Kheri (Uttar Pradesh): Like several of his visits to Uttar

1. Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi's destination was not made clear till the very last minute. The Congress General Secretary visited Lakhimpur Kheri, a three-hour drive from Lucknow and spent a little over an hour with the family whose teen daughter was found hanging at a police station earlier this month. Her parents say she was raped, then killed. The post-mortem reports do not establish that she was sexually assaulted. A series of rapes this month have forced Chief Minister Mayawati to confront accusations that her government and police force are failing women in UP. She has not visited this family. Uttar Pradesh votes next year, and political parties led protest marches in Lucknow this week to highlight the weaknesses in Mayawati's governance. Mr Gandhi also visited the police station where the teen was discovered hanging from a tree by her own dupatta. Referring to the victim as a "bacchi" or child, he said, "The police station is meant to be where justice is delivered to people. Instead, it's where a young girl was killed." He said he supports the demand for a CBI inquiry, made by the victim's mother, on the ground that the UP Police will not conduct an honest investigation against its own men. The girl's mother, Tarannum, later told the media: "I do not have any confidence or hope that I would get justice in UP. I am not seeking justice not just for my daughter but I am fighting for securing justice and a sense of security for all women in UP." The police had originally tried to intimidate the victim's family when they asked for a formal complaint of murder to be registered. Accept it as a suicide, they had said, to the girl's parents.After severe criticism and media coverage, eleven policemen and the three doctors who conducted the first autopsy were suspended. Mayawati has so far said that a CBI inquiry is not needed. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Uttar Pradesh Police is handling the case.

Dawood's brother Iqbal Kaskar shot at, escapes unhurt

Mumbai: In a sudden attack near Mumbai's famous JJ Hospital on Tuesday night, underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's brother, Iqbal Kaskar, was targeted. While Kaskar escaped, his bodyguard Arif Abu Bakar was killed. Two people have been arrested. "Two men came on a bike and fled after opening fire. A bullet hit Iqbal Kaskar's bodyguard, Arif bhai," said an eyewitness. "The public caught them because their bike slipped. The public then surrounded them," said another eyewitness. Sources have told NDTV that preliminary investigations suggest Chhota Rajan gang is behind the attack. The two men arrested by the Mumbai police have told investigators that they were hired as shooters by a Chhota Rajan gang member in Mumbai. Kaskar is said to have a limited role in the Dawood gang but the police suspect gang rivalry is behind the attack. This is the second attempt on Kaskar's life. He was attacked by a rival gang way back in 1986. Though Kaskar downplayed his Dawood connection, he was earlier linked to a murder case, and then charged in the infamous Sara-Sahara case under MCOCA. He was accused of grabbing land for an illegal shopping mall allegedly owned by Dawood. Kaskar was acquitted in 2007 for lack of evidence - the only member of the Dawood family to be tried in an Indian court. "We have recovered three weapons, some live ammunition and cartridges. We have apprehended two people," said Anil Kumbhare, DCP. Dawood may have fled India before the Mumbai serial blasts, but is said to own substantial property in Central Mumbai. And the shooting is a reminder of his family connections in the city. Besides Kaskar, Dawood's sister Haseena Parkar and her family continue to live here.

Farmers' protests: Rahul's evidence vs ground reality

Bhatta, Parsaul: Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi generated much political heat with his claims about the Uttar Pradesh government's alleged atrocities in the villages that were at the centre of Noida land wars. "74 stacks of hay were set on fire. There were bones in them. Women too were raped," Mr Gandhi had said. These startling claims were backed up with pictures which he claims were taken by farmers and journalists in Bhatta and Parsaul villages in Uttar Pradesh's Greater Noida. But the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) questioned the authenticity of the photographs released by Rahul Gandhi to back his charge; the villagers stopped short of saying there were rapes and killings. "There was no rape in our village. Four innocent were, however, badly beaten," said one of the villagers. The forensic probe results are still awaited. But a stung Chief Minister Mayawati has ruled out killing of agitators as a theory most preposterous. Her denial was reflected in the police action. "We wanted to ascertain if explosive were stored in the village. We took the sample and will seek the permission of the court and send it to the CFSL," said Rajnikant Mishra, Inspector General, Meerut Zone. But senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh backs Mr Gandhi's claims about the alleged torture. "That is why we are demanding a judicial enquiry from day one," he said. But for villagers, these are tense moments. Babita has not heard from her husband and children in 10 days. Struggling alone, her fears seem to have acquired some kind of a conviction in Rahul Gandhi's claim, though hers is a lone voice. "The police shot a man. He was dying. There were no men around. The women tried to help him. But the police took him away and threw him in a fire. I saw this," she said. Even almost 10 days later, most of the men of the village have not returned as most fear of being arrested. In light of that and the many missing, an analysis of these burnt hay stacks may now offer some clue if any of them were victims of police action.

The men who went to Osama's bedroom, shot him

Islamabad:  There were 79 people on the assault team that killed Osama bin Laden, but in the end, the success of the mission turned on some two dozen men who landed inside the Qaeda leader's compound, made their way to his bedroom and shot him at close range -- all while knowing that the president of the United States was keeping watch from Washington.
The men, hailed as heroes across the country, will march in no parades. They serve in what is unofficially called SEAL Team 6, a unit so secretive that the White House and the Defense Department do not directly acknowledge its existence. Its members have hunted down war criminals in Bosnia, fought in some of the bloodiest battles in Afghanistan and shot three Somali pirates dead on a bobbing lifeboat during the rescue of an American hostage in 2009.

The raid early Monday in Pakistan has nonetheless put a spotlight on a unit that has been involved in some of the American military's most dangerous missions of recent decades.

Leon E. Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said the SEAL commandos went into the mission with only a 60 percent to 80 percent certainty that Bin Laden was in the compound. Mr. Panetta said the commandos made the "split-second decision" to shoot him -- the unarmed Qaeda founder had a rifle within reach, an American official said Wednesday -- when they found him in his third-floor bedroom.

There was no debate among former SEAL members that whoever had shot Bin Laden had done the right thing.

"It's dark; there's been a lot of bullets flying around, a lot of bodies dropping; your mission is to capture or kill Bin Laden; who knows what he's got tucked in his shirt?" said Don Shipley, 49, a former SEAL member who runs Extreme SEAL Experience, a private training school in Chesapeake, Va. Mr. Shipley was reacting to earlier Obama administration accounts of an extended firefight at the compound, but on Wednesday, administration officials revised the narrative, saying that the only shots fired came at the beginning of the raid, from a courier.

"It happens in an absolute blink of an eye for these guys," Mr. Shipley said. "And there's that target in front of you. Second chances cost lives."

Lalo Roberti, 27, a former SEAL member who teaches at Mr. Shipley's school and took part in a gruesome rescue mission in Afghanistan in 2005, concurred. "For us to take a shot, it has to be bad," Mr. Roberti said. "Especially for the '6' guys."

Inside the Navy, there are regular unclassified SEAL members, organized into Teams 1 to 5 and 7 to 10. Then there is SEAL Team 6, the elite of the elite, or, as Mr. Roberti put it, "the all-star team."

Former SEAL members said this week that the unit -- officially renamed the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or Devgru -- was chosen for the bloody Bin Laden raid, the most high-profile operation in the history of the SEALs, because of the group's skills in using lethal force intelligently in complex, ambiguous conditions.

All SEAL members face years of brutal preparation, including a notorious six months of basic underwater demolition training in Coronado, Calif. During "hell week," recruits get a total of four hours of sleep during five and a half days of nonstop running, swimming in the cold surf and rolling in mud. About 80 percent of the candidates do not make it; at least one has died.

For those who succeed, more training and then deployments follow. After several years on regular SEAL teams, Team 6 candidates are taught to parachute from 30,000 feet with oxygen masks and gain control of a hijacked cruise liner at sea. Of those SEAL members, about half make it.

Ryan Zinke, 49, a former member of SEAL Team 6 who is now a Republican state legislator in Montana, said members of Team 6 had a certain personality: "I would say cocky, arrogant."

SEALs -- the term stands for Sea-Air-Land teams -- were created by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 as a way to expand unconventional warfare.

SEAL Team 6 came later as a reaction to the botched mission to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980, when the Pentagon saw the need for what became today's Special Operations Command, with a special Navy unit focused on counterterrorism.

SEAL Team 6 has historically specialized in war on the seas, but in the decade since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it has increasingly fought on land in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Its size is classified, but Team 6 is thought to have doubled to nearly 300 since then. Over all, there are now about 3,000 active-duty SEAL members, split between odd-numbered teams in Coronado and even-numbered teams in Virginia Beach.

Team 6, which is based in an area separate from all the others, at the Dam Neck Annex of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, has many members in their mid-30s, a decade or more older than the 20-year-olds who populate the military.

"I used to call it the old man's club," Mr. Zinke said.

Reflecting the growing importance of special operations and guerrilla-type warfare, SEAL members have risen since the Sept. 11 attacks to higher levels of prominence within the military.

The officer who designed and oversaw the Bin Laden raid, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, is a SEAL member who is soon to take over leadership of the military's Special Operations Command from Adm. Eric T. Olson, also a SEAL member. On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward Jr., another SEAL member, would become deputy commander of United States Central Command, making him the second-highest-ranking American officer for the Middle East.

Eric Greitens, a former SEAL member who has written a book about his experiences, "The Heart and the Fist," said that SEAL members were misunderstood as the nation's deadliest commandos.

Although the gruesome descriptions of the pictures of Bin Laden with a bullet in his head would appear to underscore that reputation -- and help to explain why President Obama decided Wednesday not to release them -- Mr. Greitens called SEAL members "creative" commandos who knew "to bring back as much intelligence as they possibly could."

The cache the SEAL team recovered from the Bin Laden compound included more than 100 storage devices -- DVDs, thumb drives and computer discs -- as well as 5 computers and 10 computer hard drives.

Despite the mission's success, former SEAL members acknowledged the precariousness of the raid and the degree of luck involved. "If that thing had gone bad, the conversation you and I would be having would be completely different," Mr. Shipley said. "There's only two ways to go in these operations -- zero or hero."

Osama buried at sea: US Official

Washington:  After bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. forces in Pakistan, senior administration officials said the body would be handled according to Islamic practice and tradition. That practice calls for the body to be buried within 24 hours, the official said. Finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, the official said. So the U.S. decided to bury him at sea.

The official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters, did not immediately say where that occurred.

30 cases against cops for graft

     CHANDIGARH: Two allegedly tipsy cops, head constable Surinder Singh and constable Rajesh, who had reportedly misbehaved with relatives of local MP Pawan Kumar Bansal, were given a clean chit in the court. Departmental probe against them is still pending.

      A total of six cases under Excise Act for doing duty in inebriated condition have been registered against six cops in 2011. The detailed list reveals 30 cases out of 120 were registered for allegedly demanding and accepting the bribe and in 20 cases cops of different ranks have been convicted.

      Three custodial death cases were also in the list of criminal offences against cops, but two of them were ''settled'' after a written compromise between cops and victim's families. In one custodial death case, sub-inspector Narinder Singh was held guilty on November 7, 2009. An arrested youth Anil Kumar had died in police custody inside Manimajra police station in July 2007.

65-yr-old woman robbed, killed on train to Mumbai

MUMBAI: A senior citizen was found brutally murdered and robbed aboard the Kamayani Express late on Saturday. Nandki Siddiqui (65), the victim, was travelling from Allahabad to Mumbai with her teenaged grandson, Mohammad Imran. The murder took place between Thane and Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) stations after other passengers had disembarked at Thane around 11.30 pm.

GRP officials said they suspect the involvement of a man who boarded the train at Thane claiming to be a ticket checker. The man told Imran that the compartment was reserved for ladies and he should move to a general compartment, leaving his grandmother alone. At LTT, the train's last stop, Imran returned to pick up Nandki but saw his grandmother lying in a pool of blood. Her throat was slit and Rs 2,500 was missing from her belongings.

"From the manner in which he attacked the senior citizen, the accused seems likely to be a habitual offender. Nandki was quite frail and was in no position to put up a struggle. If the accused intended to rob her, he could have merely threatened her. Killing her was unnecessary," said assistant police commissioner Bapu Thombre. Imran has described the assailant to the police. As the compartment was located next to the guard's cabin, the guard too had a good look at the suspect and will aid the police in preparing his identity-sketch.

Nandki and Imran (19), the son of her younger son, were travelling to Mumbai for a wedding in the family of Nandki's older son who is based in Nala Sopara. On Friday, the duo boarded the Kamayani Express from Allahabad around 7 pm. On Saturday, around 11.30 pm, the train reached Thane and most passengers got off. A man dressed in a black T-shirt and blue jeans then got into the compartment in which Nandki and Imran were seated. He asked to see their tickets and fished out a receipt book from his pocket, introducing himself as a ticket checker.

"The man told Imran that he was travelling illegally in the ladies compartment and would have to pay a fine of Rs 500. He also asked Imran to move into the general compartment if he wanted to avoid paying the fine. An unsuspecting Imran did as he was told," senior inspector Dilip Gore said. "We suspect the accused murdered Nandki, robbed her and then got off the running train. The entire incident took less than ten minutes."

After conducting an autopsy at the Rajawadi post-mortem centre, Nandki's body was handed over to her family. "We are scanning our files for habitual offenders. The accused must have carried a knife on him and had planned the robbery in advance. He also struck Nandki on her arm, leaving a deep gash," Gore said. "The compartment was splattered with blood. We suspect the accused is well-aware of how a ticket checker works as he was armed with a receipt book."

Lufthansa staff commits suicide in Bangalore hotel

Bangalore: A German national employed with Lufthansa Airlines allegedly committed suicide in his room in a five-star hotel here, police said today. Alexander Kourik (35), a flight purser with Lufthansa Airlines, ended his life by slashing his wrist, elbow and leg with a broken liquor glass and a bottle opener, they told PTI. Kourik had checked into the Oberoi Hotel at 2 am on Saturday after his flight landed here. He then hung the "Do Not Disturb" tag on the door knob and locked the door. As Kourik, who was supposed to check out at 11.30 pm, did not report for duty, the airline officials got suspicious and rushed to the hotel and opened the room with a duplicate key. They found him dead with his left wrist, elbow and right leg slashed with a broken liquor glass and a liquor bottle opener, police said, adding no suicide note was found. The airline officials have informed Kourik's family in Germany. The case is being investigated by Ulsoor police.

Hyderabad: MLA shot at by unidentified persons

Hyderabad: Akbaruddin Owaisi, a sitting MLA of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMM), was shot at by unidentified persons in Hyderabad today, police said. He was rushed to a nearby hospital in Santosh Nagar with severe injuries. The incident took place when he was visiting his Chandrayangutta assembly constituency in the old city of Hyderabad. Several reports said he was also attacked with a knife.

Sathya Sai Baba laid to rest in Puttaparthi

Puttaparthi:  Thousands bid farewell to Sathya Sai Baba Wednesday as the spiritual leader, who died three days ago, was laid to rest at his Prashanti Nilayam ashram with full state honours.
The coffin of the 85-year-old was lowered in a grave during the nearly two-hour private ceremony at Sai Kulwant Hall, where the godman used to give "darshan" to his devotees and deliver discourses. The burial was in accordance with the practice for Hindu spiritual gurus.
                  A select gathering, including family members of the Baba, members and officials of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, politicians and top bureaucrats was present in the hall.
                  
                    Thousands of devotees watched the last rites on giant screens outside while many more devotees in India and abroad watched it live over television.
While nearly half of the ceremony amid the chanting of vedic hymns was open to those present in the hall, the burial was performed by only a handful of close relatives and disciples in the presence of a group of priests.

Baba's nephew R.J. Ratnakar performed rituals like the sprinkling of holy water on the mortal remains under the guidance of a priest. Later, the godman was laid to rest in a 3 by 6 by 4.5 feet deep pit at a private ceremony behind curtains.

Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and Jewish priests read out their respective scriptures before the rituals began around 9 a.m. A group of disciples of Tibetan Buddhist leader Dalai Lama also attended the last rites, which were performed with full state honours.

A guard of honour was given by policemen who came in slow march and draped the national flag on the transparent casket, before the body was moved for the burial.

The buglers sounded the Last Post and policemen fired three shots in a gun salute outside the hall. A general salute was also offered by the men in uniform.

After an hour-long burial ceremony, the curtains were moved to enable VIPs to sprinkle sacred ash on the grave and pay their respects.

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani, Punjab Governor Shivraj Patil, Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, Andhra Pradesh Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and several ministers from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka sprinkled ash and paid their last respects.

The devotees were allowed into the hall in the afternoon after the "samadhi" was ready.

Thousands of devotes had last darshan of Baba till Tuesday midnight. The spiritual guru died Sunday, 28 days after he was admitted to hospital with multi-organ dysfunction. The body was kept in Prashanti Nilayam to enable people to pay their last respects.

COMMON WEALTH GAME scam: In court, Kalmadi passes buck to MS Gill

New Delhi: The survival skills that Suresh Kalmadi's political career is best known for were on full display today. He was being led into a Delhi court when a man hurled a slipper at him. Mr Kalmadi didn't miss a beat as the slipper missed him by inches and landed nearby. He continued towards court with a smile on his face.

The slipper-thrower, a lawyer named Manoj Sharma from Gwalior, was immediately detained. He has told the police he wants to fight corruption; the police in turn says it is assessing his mental stability.

In court as well, Mr Kalmadi stayed preternaturally calm as the CBI explained the evidence that led to his arrest yesterday. As Chairman of the Organising Committee for the Commonwealth Game, Mr Kalmadi is accused of corruption - of inducing and benefitting from it - by delivering inflated contracts to companies that charged exorbitant rates for equipment and services employed for the Games that were held in September in India.

The CBI says it is collecting evidence on a wide range of contracts to prove this. For now, it has targeted Mr Kalmadi for overpaying a Swiss firm 95 crores for timing and scorekeeping equipment that was used at different venues. Mr Kalmadi's lawyer, Hitesh Jain, passed the buck today to former Sports Minister MS Gill. "If you look at the decision-making process, the decision was ultimately taken by the Minister of Youth & Affairs, the then minister MS Gill, and no summons have been issued to him, no investigation, neither has he been called to record any statement
The CBI, however, says two of Mr Kalmadi's former aides have confessed that he pressured them to ensure that Swiss Timing won the timing-scoring-results (TSR) contract, despite its noncompetitive prices.

And after the CBI described Mr Kalmadi's behavior as "elusive and non-cooperative," the court refused to grant bail to Mr Kalmadi and said he will stay in jail for eight days.

The CBI will use that time to interrogate Mr Kalmadi. However, he says that given the fact that senior government officers including Mr Gill were aware of the deals being signed, they must be questioned too.

The BJP meanwhile says that while Mr Kalmadi's arrest is "better late than never," he is being made a scapegoat. The party has said that Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit must resign, accepting responsibility for the corruption that became the main currency of the sporting event. Ms Dikshit says that's not necessary.

"Whatever behavior that has been shown against Kalmadi, it is on some basis. Without basis, anything doesn't happen. So we have to look into all this, and whatever will happen, I have repeatedly said and I will again say it, that whoever will be the culprit and whatever he has done, he will be prosecuted and punished, according to law," she said.

Once a political and indispensable heavyweight in Pune, Mr Kalmadi has been suspended by the Congress. His posters were defaced yesterday by a section of his partymen at the local Congress office. It is a tumultuous fall from grace for a man who has won three Lok Sabha elections from Pune, and has served four Rajya Sabha terms.