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ISIS wanted to join Kanhaiya Protests

  In a startling revelation the recruits of Islamic State (ISIS) have revealed that the Islamic State recruits in India wanted to take advantage of the student movement that broke out in several cities after the arrest of JNU student union president Kanhaiya Kumar.   If reports are to be believed, on February 19, when Kanhaiya was in Tihar jail on sedition charges and students of several universities were holding demonstrations demanding his release, ISIS's Ahmad Ali had asked 19-year-old Ashiq Ahmad alias Raja of Hooghly, West Bengal, to infiltrate the movement and burn vehicles and oil tankers using petrol.

Chennaites postpone vacation to Vote!

The month of May is vacation time for families, but many in Chennai have decided to postpone their travels, for business or leisure, only after they cast their vote. As a result, buses, flights and trains are running full in the days following the election and travel agents are struggling to ensure their clients get to cram in a two-week break before school reopens.   The railways is also looking at the reservation pattern of trains to assess requirement for special trains, and have introduced a Chennai-Ahmedabad express for May 17.

Apple shares drop to 2-Year low

  Apple Inc.'s stock tumbled to a near two-year low. It dropped below $90 for the first time since 2014. That was enough to lose the title of the world's largest company to Google parent Alphabet, whose shares lost just 0.3 percent. Faced with lackluster sales of smartphones in the United States, Apple has bet on China as a major new growth engine. But progress there has been disappointing.

Bihar Jungle Raj;Journalist shot dead

  Senior journalist Rajdeo Ranjan was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Siwan, Bihar on Friday. He was the bureau chief of Hindi daily 'Hindustan'. He had been writing against law-breakers of the area. Rajan, 42, was fired at when he was travelling on his motorcycle near the fruit market on Station Road at around 7:45 pm, Superintendent of Police Saurabh Kumar said. He was hit on the head and neck and died on the way to hospital.

Raina to miss first ever IPL match

  IPL team Gujarat Lions' coach Brad Hodge, on Friday, confirmed that captain Suresh Raina will be missing his first ever match in the Indian Premier League history when his team faces Royal Challengers Bangalore on Saturday. "He is not coming. He is with his wife and child," he told reporters.   "It is a huge loss if someone has almost 4,000 runs in the IPL history. Having said that we have got some players who can step into his shoes. We have players like Dwayne Smith, Aaron Finch, Dinesh Karthik and Dwayne Bravo - they are all match winners. They can step up and win a game from any position," he said. Brendon McCullum is said to lead the side in Raina's absence.  

1L sign Anti-High Heel Petition in UK

Nicola Thorp, a temporary worker in London, who was sent home for wearing flat shoes, has collected more than 120,000 signatures so far in a petition asking for Britain to make it illegal for a firm to require women to wear high heels at work. Nicola set up the petition after being sent home from her job as a secretary after refusing to wear shoes with a "2in to 4in heel".   "I'm so overwhelmed," she said. "It shows it is an important matter and it is a step in the right direction. It has opened up a dialogue for women to talk about how they feel at work and how they're dressed."

Probe Hyderabad varsity protests funding:BJP

  BJP targeted Congress and the Left parties for "politicising" the Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's  death,in the university premises, attacking the former's vice president Rahul Gandhi for not visiting Kerala where a Dalit girl was raped and murdered and the latter for "never" putting a Dalit in the leadership position.   BJP has also asked the government to probe the source of funding behind the ongoing agitation of student groups in the University of Hyderabad following Rohith Vemula's suicide and questioned how they were able to pay for tent and "lavish parties" every day.

Kumble and Dravid in ICC committee

The International Cricket Council has reappointed former Indian spinner Anil Kumble as the chairman. ICC has also appointed former India captain Rahul Dravid and ex-Sri Lankan batsmanMahela Jayawardene in its Cricket Committee. This will add even more cricketing experience to the list of eminent people already on the panel. They will attend their first meeting at Lord's on May 31 and June 1, three weeks before the ICC Annual Conference takes place in Edinburgh, Scotland, the ICC said in a statement. Dravid has been elected by the current Test captains as current player representatives, replacing former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara, who has completed his final three-year term.

Gavaskar gets Rs.89.75 lakh for commentary

  BCCI has revealed in its monthly disclosure of payments exceeding Rs 25 lakh. Former captain Sunil Gavaskar was paid a commentary fee of Rs 89.75 lakh for the period of January to March, while L Sivaramakrishnan was paid Rs 26.12 lakh for the same duration. BCCI also cleared the dues to various state associations for conducting domestic tournaments, camps and infrastructure subsidy. The Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association was paid a total of Rs 8.67 crore as part of infrastructure subsidy and service tax claim. While Kerala Cricket Association was made a payment of Rs 1.62 crore for the same.

Railways withdraws 4Cr water Bill to Latur

The Ministry of Railways on Friday released a press release regarding theongoing water transportation exercise in drought-hit Maharashtra's Latur district and announced that the board will immediately withdraw a bill of Rs 4 crore sent to the state government for the effort. The news of railways sending such a huge bill raised a lot of questions and later railways retracted from their earlier stand. Central Railway's general manager SK Sood had said, "We have sent the bill to the Latur district collector as per the administration's request." After nine trips by a 10-wagon water train, a 50-wagon water train carrying 25 lakh litre water was later pressed into service. It was specially commissioned from Kota in Rajasthan to transport water to Latur.

Court stays disciplinary action against Kanhaiya

  The Delhi High Court on Friday stayed disciplinary action against Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and other students. The university had earlier fined Kumar Rs 10,000 and suspended the others for varying periods of time following an inquiry panel’s report on events that led to Kumar's arrest in February.   Justice Manmohan gave a conditional stay on disciplinary action against all JNU students if they end all agitation. "If you have confidence in us, you will withdraw everything (agitation)," he said.

India lobbying against us:Pak

  The Pakistani Prime Minister's Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz admitted that relations between Pakistan and the United States were not on good terms in the past few months. Pakistan accused India of attempting to block the F-16 sale by tirelessly lobbying against them.   "The Indian lobby has been making untiring efforts to reverse the US decision, and a strong attempt, through Senator Rand Paul's resolution, to block the sale itself," Aziz was quoted as saying by an official statement.

Amaravathi awaits Green clearance

  AP CM Chandra Babu Naidu's dream project, the new state capital Amaravathi, is still awaiting green clearance. The foundation for which was laid by PM Modi in last October. Environment minister Prakash Javadekar had assured Andhra Pradesh government in February this year that all green clearances to the state's new capital Amaravati would be given in a month's time. He also said that the project is of national importance.   The state has been forced to decrease forest land diversion from 19,000 hectares to about 13,000 hectares and at a meeting held by the environment ministry committee, green clearance to the project has been held back pending more information and details of land use. A source says, "There are serious concerns over land use. Clarity is needed on this aspect as this cannot be permitted. Also how will they fulfill compensatory afforestation criteria and where will they plant the new trees has to be clearly committed."

Cong at loss;53 RS members retire today

  In one of the biggest retiring phases in recent time, Rajya Sabha will see 53 members retiring today. There are some big names in the list too like, Venkaiah Naidu, Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitaraman, YS Choudhry. Venkaiah Naidu though is likely to be reelected from Karnataka where a vacancy has been created after Vijay Mallya resigned.   Naidu can even come from his home state Andhra Pradesh provided BJP seeks help of ruling Telugu Desam Party. In AP, TDP is likely to get three seats while YSR Congress will get one. In case Naidu comes from AP, Sitharaman, whose two-year term from AP is getting over, will have to be elected from some other state. Naqvi is likely to make it from UP and Choudhry, a TDP member, from AP. Goel will come from Maharashtra. With 65 seats, Congress will be the biggest loser as its 16 members will retire and chances of only a few of them will return to the House.

Clean Chit for Sadhvi in 2008 Blasts Case

In a major twist in the 2008 Malegaon Blasts Case National Investigation Agency (NIA) has decided not to name Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur as accused in its chargesheet which is likely to be filed on Friday. The agency has decided to drop charges under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against Thakur. The NIA is likely to tell the court later today that there is not enough evidence against Sadhvi to charge her in this case.   The final decision would however lie with the court and if the same is accepted she will walk free after 8 years. Twelve persons, including the Sadhvi and Purohit, were arrested for carrying out a blast at Malegaon, a predominantly Muslim town in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008, killing six persons and injuring 100.

TV Sting confirms Dawood Pakistan address

  A 23 year old lie of Pakistan was nailed in a TV sting operation. The fact that Pakistan giving asylum to gangster Dawood Ibrahim has been proved. The journalists of a news channel who made the sting operation managed to track down the terror don's bungalow. The address is said to be D 13, Block 4, Clifton, Karachi. The video of the sting operation showed top-angle shots of the house, which is flanked by a cricket stadium on one side and the Clifton Marquee, a popular wedding & banquet hall on the other.   Covering roughly about half a kilometer radius on a bike, for about five minutes, the sting operators interviewed locals as well as Dawood's own security guards. Everyone they came across seemed to know where he lives. It's almost like an open secret in the up-market locality of Karachi.

Supreme Court: SIT in wife-swap in Navy

  In a first if its kind judgment Apex court while acting on the complaint filed by the wife of a naval officer seeking a CBI probe into the alleged practice of wife-swapping among naval officers at Naval Base, Kochi, directed the Kerala Police to set up a Special Investigating Team (SIT) to probe into the allegations.   A bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices R Banumathi and UU Lalit rejected the complainant's plea for a CBI probe into the allegations but said, "The facts and circumstances in which the offence is alleged to have been committed can be better investigated into by the state police."   The 26-year-old estranged wife of the naval officer had filed the petition in 2013 alleging that the police in Kerala, where her husband was based, and the naval authorities were harassing her rather than acting on her complaint.

RBI governor should be removed- Swamy

  Senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has once again made some serious comments. But it is neither against Sonia nor against Rahul. This time Swamy has targeted RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. Though Raghuram hails from a Tamil family, Swamy doesn’t seem to be happy with the performance of Rajan. Swamy felt that Raghuram is not apt for our country. According to him, some decisions taken by Raghuram to cut inflation has infact badly affected the nation’s economy.   Swamy’s comments has come in response to some sour expressions made by Rajan while lecturing at Cambridge University. Rajan in those lectures has felt that ‘foreign banks have stopped opening branches in India due to higher risk involved in lending loans.’  With all Mallya’s and Subrata’s in the news of defaulters, Rajan seems to have made a point! One could only wonder why Swami couldn’t agree with him.

Indian cities are highly polluted

  The latest WHO report on pollution has induced 8 Indian cities in its top 20. Though Delhi finds a 11th place in the list, it is certainly encouraging for the city. Because in 2015, Delhi has topped the list at no.1 position. WHO has measured the intensity of pollution by checking the PM (Particulate matter) of 2.5 microns present in the air.   Such tiny PM can cause lung and heart diseases in long run. Though Delhi seems to have made a commendable effort in reducing pollution, other cities doesn’t seem to follow the example. Gwalior (2), Allahabad (3), Ludhiana (12), Kanpur (15), Khanna (16), Firozabad (17), Lucknow (18) have all entered into the infamous list. However, Zabol of Iran saved us from some shame. It was declared as most polluted city in the world.