India

New Delhi, Jan 14: The Supreme Court on Monday questioned “khap panchayats” ’(village councils of male elders), active in Haryana and some parts of Uttar Pradesh, for issuing diktats prescribing a particular dress code for women and prohibiting them from using mobile phones. A bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai said the orders issued by the panchayats were unlawful and violated

Lucknow, Jan 15: More than 10 million devotees from across the world took a holy dip in the sacred waters of “sangam” (the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers) at Allahabad amid tight security as the Mahakumbh mela began at Allahabad on Monday. The first “shahi snan” (“royal baths” at the sangam by saints and sadhus of the 13 akharas) began at 5 am in the morning with

New Delhi, Jan 14: Terming as "unpardonable" the beheading of a soldier by Pakistan on the Line of Control, Army chief Gen Bikram Singh on Monday warned that India's military will retaliate aggressively in case of any further provocation. Talking tough, he said the killing of two Indian soldiers on the LoC in Mendhar area of Jammu and Kashmir on January 6 was a pre-planned and pre-meditated action

Hyderabad, Jan 14: Police in Hyderabad Monday arrested spiritual leader Swami Kamlananda Bharati for making a hate speech against Muslims. The police arrested him in Srisailam, about 250 km from here. He is being brought to Hyderabad, police said. Two cases were booked against him by the police in two police stations in the old city. Bharati has served as president of Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana

Godhra, Jan 14: Maulana Hussain Umarji passed away Sunday night. He was 73. Maulana Umarji was called the “key conspirator” of the Godhra train burning incident by Special Investigation Team (SIT). He spent eight years in jail for no fault of his. He was acquitted in 2011 by a special court. Umarji organized relief camp in Godhra in 2002 for the survivors of Panchmahal & Dahod districts in the

New Delhi, Jan 14: Notwithstanding a huge controversy over expenditure on her foreign travels, the then President Pratibha Patil ran up a bill of Rs 18.08 crore on her last trip abroad shortly before demitting office, according to official information accessed through RTI. The chartering of the Air India Boeing 747-400 jumbo for her two-nation trip to South Africa and Seychelles from April 29 to

New Delhi, Jan 13: The accused in the series of blasts linked to Hindu terror had also participated in the 2002 Gujarat riots that claimed over 1,600 lives. Investigations by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) have found that some of those accused in blasts such as the Samjhauta Express, Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Dargah and Malegaon had gone to Gujarat during the 2002 riots on the

Nagpur, Jan 13: A man-eating tigress was shot dead by a sharpshooter of the C-60 anti-Naxal squad in Navegaon National Park in Maharashtra on Saturday, 27 days after it first killed a woman in Bhandara district. Gondia district deputy conservator of forests S V Ramarao said the animal was not more than three years old and was shot 20km from the Navegaon National Park boundary. The park is 130km

Nagpur, Jan 12: The Income Tax department has issued summons for appearance to BJP President Nitin Gadkari in connection with its investigation against him and some associated companies for alleged tax evasion. Top sources in the department said Gadkari has been asked for his personal appearance so that he can be confronted with the documents and probe conducted by the I-T in this regard in the

Bangalore, Jan 13: Another deadline set by KJP leader B S Yeddyurappa to topple the State government is taking on the impression of being a farce. His professed loyalists in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who have kept him on tenterhooks, with promises of joining the KJP, are now said to have forced him to abandon the Sankranti deadline to bring down the government. Yeddyurappa had vowed to