15,383 litre illicit liquor, Nepali currency seized in Bihar

He said over Rs 61,565 Nepali currency was seized from Kishanganj district during the drive to enforce the election code. Besides, 3.5 kg of contraband ganja was seized from Khagaria district. Flying squad, static surveillance team and other agencies have so far seized Rs 12.48 crore, Lakshmanan said.

Boylan said he doesn't know what was in it. "Somebody has a box. I don't know what that's about," he said. The shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg left nine people dead and nine more injured Thursday.

Katju said he too ate beef and was not harm in it.  "Are those people across the world who eat beef are bad and only we (in the country) who don't eat are saints and seers? What is the harm in it when people eat beef, I too eat and will even continue to eat further..." he said. 

The former Allahabad High Court judge strongly condemned the killing of the man in Dadri and demanded severe punishment to those involved in it.

Sadhvi Prachi is known for her controversial statements. In the past, she had kicked up a storm when she said that those who are opposed to Yoga should go to Pakistan and that they have "no right" to stay in the country.

Earlier in the day, the UP CM announced an ex-gratia compensation of Rs 20 lakh for the kin while IAF chief Arup Raha announced that the Indian Air Force was mulling to move the family from the village. 

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi dated October 2, Jayalalithaa said seven fishermen who set out from Nagapattinam district were arrested by the Lankan Navy on October 1. Their boat was also seized. "This latest belligerent act of the Sri Lankan Navy perpetrated on innocent and unarmed Indian fishermen adds to the immense frustration that has built up among the fishermen of Tamil Nadu," she said in the letter.

Principal Home Secretary (Prisons) Vijay Satbir Singh said the probe would cover all aspects, including whether the medicines or any other toxic she consumed were prescribed by doctors and if there was an overdose and how it happened. The probe will also ascertain if there was any negligence or foul play, he said, adding the entire exercise would be completed in a week's time.

So far it was suspected that she had taken an overdose of anti-depressants and anti-epileptic pills that she was taking for a few days at the Byculla prison where she has been lodged since September 7. 

An official from the FSL said that they ran tests on her stomach wash, blood and urine samples and did not find any chemicals to suggest a drug overdose. "It may be some health problem or ailment she may be suffering. The doctors at JJ will be able to determine that better," said an official from FSL requesting anonymity.  

Hosi Koniyo, who was headed to an agriculture farm on the outskirts of northern Rangpur city in a rickshaw, was shot thrice in the chest, shoulder and hand by the yet-unidentified assassins.  "It appears to be a target killing as the assailants in masks shot him thrice. The Japanese gentleman died instantly," officer-in-charge of the local police station Rezaul Karim said. 

The Japanese national's murder came five days after 50-year-old Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella was killed when motorbike-born terrorists shot him dead in Dhaka's diplomatic Gulshan area. 

Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the fatal attack on Tavella. But Bangladesh government then downplayed the claim, describing it as an "isolated incident".

Around 200 persons attacked the residence of Iqlakh on Monday night after rumours spread in the village that a cow has been slaughtered and the beef was stored in his house, police said.

The mob allegedly beat Iqlakh to death while his 22-year-old son Danish was critically injured in the attack and is undergoing treatment at a hospital.

Shivam and Vishal, the main accused in the Dadri lynching, have been arrested.

Around 200 persons attacked the residence of Iqlakh on Monday night after rumours spread in the village that a cow has been slaughtered and the beef was stored in his house, police said.

The mob allegedly beat Iqlakh to death while his 22-year-old son Danish was critically injured in the attack and is undergoing treatment at a hospital.

Iqlakh's family had alleged that Vishal forced the priest to announce that cow was slaughtered and stored in their house.

Interestingly, speaking to CNN-IBN, the priest on Thursday said that two youths had forced him to make the announcement that cow was slaughtered and stored in the house of the victim.

Six persons have already been arrested in connection with the lynching of the man over suspected beef consumption.

Pakistan Maritime Security Agency today apprehended around 65 fishermen along with their 12 boats off the Gujarat coast, officials of National Fishworkers Forum said.

This is the biggest and the fourth major incident of apprehending Indian fishermen by PMSA since January this year. 

"PMSA personnel have apprehended around 65 fishermen and their 12 boats off Gujarat coast," Secretary of NFF Manish Lodhari told PTI. 

"Those fishermen from Okha and Porbandar town of the state sailed off the coast of Gujarat four to five days ago and today they were held captive," Lodhari said. 

He said around 11 boats were from Porbandar and one was from Okha. 

The NFF official said he got to know about the incident from the fishermen who were in contact with him through a wireless phone set. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will leave for India on Sunday together with a high-ranking delegation of several senior ministers to take part in the third joint meeting of the cabinets of the two countries with trade and security among key issues to be discussed. 

Merkel and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will jointly chair the India-Germany inter-governmental consultations in New Delhi on Monday.

She will be accompanied by Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Food and Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt, Minister for Education and Research Johanna Wanka and Minister for Development Cooperation Gerd Mueller. 

Merkel is expected to convey problems faced by German industries in proceeding with planned investments. 

The federal ministries of the interior, finance, labour, defence, transport and environment  will be represented by their state secretaries, a government spokesman said in Berlin.

Further strengthening the cooperation between the two countries in the fields of economy, vocational training, science and technology, environment protection and development cooperation will be at the centre of the discussions. Regional and global issues of mutual interest also will be discussed at the meeting.

Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on Saturday said that if the duo of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav win in the upcoming Bihar assembly polls, then there will be 'Jungle Raj 2' in Bihar.

"Lalu-Nitish duo cannot bring change in Bihar, only BJP can do that. They have divided the society in the name of caste. If Lalu Nitish wins then there will be Jungle Raj 2," Shah said while addressing a rally here.

"It can be clearly seen that under the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party, NDA government will be formed in Bihar with 2/3rd majority," he added.

Shah further said, "The people of Bihar will have to decide where it wants to take it. For 25 years there has been the rule of Lalu and Nitish and within this 25 years Bihar has lagged behind."

The play 'Agnes of God', about an American nun who gives birth to a dead child and claims it is the result of a virgin conception has been made into a film and has played all over the world. It was performed in Mumbai two decades ago. But now it has run afoul of the Church and of self-proclaimed activists and its first performance on Monday is in jeopardy.

The highest Catholic body of the western region -- the Archdiocese -- has issued a strong statement against the play and the manner in which it was advertised -- 'The screaming headlines and life-size cut outs of religious sisters seem to portray them as characters lacking in integrity and guilty of cover-up of infanticide. Such a depiction will lower the esteem for nuns in the eyes of children to whom nuns impart knowledge and human values. This is totally unfair to our very many Religious Sisters who are working selflessly with dedication and generosity. We deplore this.' At the same time, it says it does not clamour for in bans of literary works.

The Catholics Bishop's Conference however has dashed off letters to the Home Minister Rajnath Singh asking for a ban since it offends the religious sentiments of the community. 

Jammu and Kashmir Assembly began its eight-day autumn session in Srinagar on Saturday with the House paying homage to former President A P J Abdul Kalam and those who lost their lives in the Haj stampede in Mecca.

The House saw slight disturbance when independent MLA Sheikh Abdul Rashid got up from his seat and raised a demand for revocation of ban on beef.

As soon as the House began the proceedings, Rashid raised a banner which read there should be no interference in religious affairs.

He also raised the issue of the lynching of a man by a mob in Uttar Pradesh on rumours that the family had consumed beef.

"Why is not the prime minister raising his voice against the killing?" Rashid asked and then staged a walkout from the House.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his "inspirational" message, a day after Modi praised her for "wonderfully" highlighting India's contribution to the UN. 

In tweets, Swaraj also said that she was back from New York and would be travelling to poll-bound Bihar tomorrow.

"Thank you Prime Minister for your words of inspiration," she tweeted.

Modi had yesterday praised Swaraj for "wonderfully" highlighting India's contribution to the UN during her speech at the UN General Assembly. 

"Just spoke to @SushmaSwaraj ji & congratulated her for the excellent speech at the @UN. A perfect articulation of key global issues," Modi had said in a tweet. 

Apart from taking on Pakistan, asking it to shun terror to have dialogue with India, Swaraj also spoke about key issues including India's initiative on climate change and urgent need for UN Security Council reforms.

Pakistan army chief Gen Raheel Sharif has termed Kashmir as part of the "unfinished agenda of partition" and said the world community must help resolve the longstanding issue if it wants genuine peace in the region.

 

Addressing the Royal United Services Institute, an independent think-tank on defence and security, in London, Gen Sharif said the dispute between Pakistan and India "resides in the Kashmir issue".

 

Terming the Kashmir issue an unfinished agenda of partition of the sub-continent, he said the world community must come forward to help resolve the longstanding issue if it wants genuine peace in the region, the Dawn reported today.

 

The army chief claimed that Indian intransigence, violations of the Line of Control and indirect strategy against Pakistan were adversely affecting the region.

Two persons were killed and another injured while making crude bombs in a village in West Bengal's Murshidabad district where bye-elections to the panchayat body is being held, a police official said today.

Superintendent of Police C Sudhakar said two persons died on the spot when the crude bombs they were making in their home in Kumripara village burst last night. Another person sustained injuries and was rushed to Murshidabad Medical College Hospital, he said. 

Combing operations in the area has led to the recovery of a large number of "socket bombs", Sudhakar said. 

Bye-elections are being held in the district for 34 seats to the gram panchayat and panchayat samiti today. 

Panchayat bye-elections are also being held in Bankura district in 19 gram panchayat seats and two panchayat samitis.

Murshidabad district along with Burdwan, Nadia and Birbhum is among the volatile regions of the state and the site of pitched political turf wars, a police official said. 

The Congress on Saturday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Dadri lynching case, saying that expecting him to condemn the incident was as incredible as expecting the 'sun rising from the West', and added that he was 'ideologically complicit' in the matter.

"The prime minister is ideologically complicit. He wants this polarisation to take place. After all, this is the same polarisation that ensured he became the Gujarat chief minister three times in a row," Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari told ANI.

Training his guns on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Tewari said that whatever was happening in the nation in terms of quelling dissent, was an example of the Centre's mindset, besides the Prime Minister's.

"This is part of the Prime Minister's ideological make up. Whether it is the state trying to intrude into people's kitchen, bedroom, or telling them what to wear and eat, is an example of his mindset along with the BJP and RSS," Tewari added.

The Delhi Police on Saturday filed a supplementary chargesheet against AAP MLA and former law minister Somnath Bharti in connection with his midnight raid in the Khirki Extension area last year.

The chargesheet was submitted to the Saket court.

The court was to pass an order, but the matter is now listed for October 30.

In its chargesheet, police said that "nine African women were victims of molestation and manhandling by a mob led by Bharti" in the Khirki Extension area.

Bharti and his supporters had allegedly misbehaved with several African women during a raid against a suspected drug and prostitution ring.

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Saturday mocked the Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying their high command had no faith in the state unit.

"The BJP's high command considers its state leader and party workers as fools. They don't have any faith in them and that is why they are pumping all the power from outside," Yadav told ANI.

"There is no respect for the BJP state unit in their own party," he added.

He also accused the BJP of using black money to buy off the people of Bihar.

"Traders of Kolkata are being forced to pump foreign currencies into the state. The foreign currency is flowing from every direction. They want to buy the integrity of the people of Bihar," he added.

Transporters continued their nation-wide strike for the third consecutive day today, disrupting supply of goods to various parts of the country.

However, the government refused to budge on their demand for scrapping the present toll system.

Supply of essential goods such as milk, vegetables and medicines has been kept out of the purview of the indefinite strike, called by the apex transporters body, the All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC).

According to reports from states including Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, goods supply was impacted.

"For toll barrier-free India, our members will stage a peaceful dharna at Jantar Mantar today. We will continue our strike till the government comes out with some practical solution to our problem. We are not against paying toll, but we are demanding it in an annualised form," AIMTC President Bhim Wadhwa said.

According to a report in the Indian Express, N Srinivasan will skip the board's upcoming SGM where Shashank Manohar is expected to be anointed BCCI president.

Though the former BCCI president will not be physically present, his Tamil Nadu Cricket Association will be represented by PS Raman, the vice-president of the association. 

Srinivasan knows that there are few supporters left of him in the board and most of the associations had already made their mind that they want Manohar. Why he will come here to see a man who has criticized him till date. Srinivasan is past now, a BCCI official told the newspaper.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his AAP colleagues Kumar Vishwas and Sanjay Singh were denied entry by the local administration into Bishada village in Dadri, where a man was lynched earlier this week by a mob that accused him of eating beef. 

Violence was reported in the village on Saturday with some media personnel reportedly being targeted. 

So far in a manhunt search 6 people have been arrested in connection with the Dadri lynching. The video clippings shown on news channels were taken into consideration to identify the accused from the mob.

There is a lot of tension in the area post the Dadri lynching case when 55-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched by a mob when they suspected that the man was consuming beef stored in his house. Over the simmering tension near the capital city of Delhi, the Muslims of Bishada village are contemplating to move away from the place.

Sunetra Choudhury for NDTV: I have been thinking about this story ever since the man from Dadri got killed because he was suspected to have eaten beef. 

I have been thinking of sharing what happened 20 years ago, because all around me, I see people acting in a strange manner, their own coping strategies to the news that our dinner plate is now food for politics.

Like my friend MQ who put this out as his Facebook status -- "I don't eat beef and nor do I store it in my fridge. With this declaration I hope not to be dragged out of my house and killed. Inshallah I bought myself a few extra days to live, until the crazy freaks find another reason to kill.'' I love MQ and to show my support, to tell him he's not alone in his fears, I wanted to like that post, or just add a comment to it, but it all seemed too inadequate to convey what we were all feeling. 

What I do have is the story of when I accidentally served beef to my God-fearing-vegetarian-on-Saturdays-temple-going-parents.

How can all this be normal? How can life on the streets of Basehara village go on, as if nothing happened here, and whatever happened was not wrong?

The bloody sights inside that room tell the story of how deep-seated was the hatred in the hearts of those who killed Mohammad Akhlaq. Could such fury, such bestial savagery have ridden on just a rumour that Akhlaq had eaten beef?

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres says three of its staff were killed when its clinic in the Afghan city of Kunduz was hit by sustained bombing.

It said another 30 people were unaccounted for. There is no word on the nationalities of the victims.

A Nato statement says a US air strike "may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility".

The Taliban has clashed with government troops since its militants seized the northern city earlier this week.

Kunduz was the first major urban centre to fall to the Taliban in 14 years.

The medical clinic run by MSF was hit several times during "sustained bombing and was very badly damaged" at 02:10 local time (22:40 GMT) on Saturday.

A statement from Nato said: "US forces conducted an air strike in Kunduz city at 02:15 (local time)... against individuals threatening the force". But, it continues, the strike may have caused damage to a nearby medical facility.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pushed for universal enrollment under the ambitious Aadhaar project by the year-end. 

At a recent high-level meeting of PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance And Timely Implementation), Modi asked Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and chief secretaries of states such as UP and Bihar which are lagging behind to accelerate and complete enrollment of all residents by December 2015.

Modi's emphasis on the 'JAM (Jandhan, Aadhaar, Mobile) trinity' in his Silicon Valley outreach, is a clear indication that he wants Aadhaar to be one of the pivots of his anti-poverty strategies ensuring entitlements meant for poor and rural masses actually reach them.

On its part, the UIDAI, which has enrolled around 91.68 crore citizens since it issued the first Aadhaar number five years back, is confident it can rise to the PM's expectations. 

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Friday said he believed some umpiring decision which did not go in favour of his side changed the game as South Africa beat the host by seven wickets in the first T20 international at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamshala.

Duminy's 68-run innings proved to be the decisive factor as the Proteas got home with two deliveries to spare. But the left-hander survived two very close shouts for leg-before-wicket during his stay at the crease. Both looked to be right in front of the stumps but the umpire thought otherwise.

"We did not have quite a few decisions going our way and sometimes these can change the match. If you could have got Duminy early it could have been different. He played brilliant cricket later on," Dhoni said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

He said the total of 199 that India had amassed was close to par but added they gave to many runs away in small phases during the game.

The Centre is examining a proposal to confine television ads for condoms to late-night hours.

The I&B ministry has taken up the matter amid what officials claimed was a "flood of complaints" from sections of viewers, including politicians.

"There is currently no restriction on condom advertisements. They can be shown at any time of the day and on any kind of channel, but this might change in the future as we're taking a fresh look," an official in the broadcasting division said.

Television content is classified into two groups -- general (G) and restricted (R).

While general content is considered suitable for unrestricted viewing, the restricted content can only be aired between 11pm and 5am and is not intended for young viewers.

ABP LIVE reports: The Indian Institutes of Technology will discuss a proposal to raise their tuition fee to a level where it covers their entire running costs, lowering their dependence on government funds.

 

The fee could more than double if the IIT Council accepts the suggestion at its Tuesday meeting, but sources clarified that most of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students would be unaffected.

 

These 18 premier engineering schools now charge undergraduate students an annual tuition fee of Rs 90,000. A committee headed by scientist Anil Kakodkar had in 2011 pegged the institutes' operational costs per student at between Rs 2.25 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh.

Former media honcho Indrani Mukerjea, accused of killing her daughter Sheena Bora, is alleged to have attempted suicide by consuming pills in jail on Friday.

Indrani, wife of former STAR India CEO Peter Mukerjea, was rushed to government-run JJ Hospital in south Mumbai in an unconscious state Friday afternoon. She was hospitalised after drug overdose with doctors describing her condition as "serious", leading to speculation that she might have attempted suicide.

"Indrani is in a semi conscious state and will be under treatment and observation at the hospital for three more days," TP Lahane, Dean of JJ hospital told PTI this morning.

"Necessary blood and urine tests were carried out and a team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials was also briefed on her medical condition," another doctor at the hospital said.