India

New York, December 6: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi have been named among the top 20 most powerful persons in the world by Forbes magazine in its annual power rankings which placed US President Barack Obama as number one for a second year in a row. India's richest businessman Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and and Arcelor Mittal CEO Lakshmi Mittal

London, December 6: Younger and younger girls are being dragged into prostitution because of the global economic crisis, a conference on women's rights was told on Wednesday. About 21 million people - or three out of 1,000 people globally - are in forced labour, meaning they have been coerced or deceived into jobs which they cannot leave, figures released by the International Labour Organisation

New Delhi, December 5: The ruling UPA government comfortably defeated the opposition-sponsored motion against FDI in Lok Sabha on Wednesday. Out of 471 members present and voting 218 voted against FDI and 253 in favour. The outcome was decisively influenced by SP and BSP members who staged a walk out before the vote. Government has neglected the interest of farmers and small traders by deciding on

New Delhi, December 5: The government is considering a proposal to make bribery in private sector a criminal offence through amendments in the Indian Penal Code. "The IPC does not provide penal provision for bribery in private sector. However, as India is a signatory to the UN Convention Against Corruption, which, inter alia, provides that act of bribery in private sector be criminalised, the

Hyderabad, December 5: A special CBI court in Hyderabad on Wednesday extended till December 19 the judicial remand of YSR Congress Party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and other accused in connection with the alleged disproportionate assets case involving him. Mr Reddy, arrested by CBI on corruption charges and presently lodged in Chanchalguda prison here, was produced under heavy security before

Rohtak (Haryana), December 5: Having strongly raised their voices for amending the Hindu Marriage Act to ban marriages within the same gotra and same village, Haryana's khap panchayats have now decided to launch a campaign to get liquor vends shut in religious towns across the state. The khaps - who constitute a socio-political grouping in Haryana - say that liquor shops located in religious towns

New Delhi, December 5: Spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on Tuesday expressed dismay over political parties giving tickets to people with criminal records due to which, he said, India has become a land of scams and slums. "The country has become a land of scams and slums and it is ironical that just for a vote bank political parties are giving tickets to those who have criminal cases against

New Delhi, December 5: The Supreme Court today upheld the election of Pranab Mukherjee as President and dismissed former Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader PA Sangma's petition against him. The verdict was delivered by a five-judge constitution bench and went 3:2 in favour of Mr Mukherjee. Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir, Justice P Sathasivam and Justice SA Nijjar said there was no need

New Delhi, December 5: The Supreme Court, which relentlessly strove to bring to book perpetrators of the fake encounter killings of Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati in Gujarat, has an explosive situation on its hands as the National Human Rights Commission informed it that 191 fake encounter killings took place in the country in the last five years. Appalled by the attitude of the Manipur

New Delhi, December 4: Aam Admi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal Tuesday accused Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of giving undue favours to some corporate companies and said the impression of him being honest was wrong. "Modi has gifted away 20 percent of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation's (GSPC) stake in the Krishna-Godavari Basin to two companies, Geo Global and Jubilant Enpro Private