British MPs to debate second EU referendum petition

Two Haryana police officials were today arrested by Mumbai Police in connection with the alleged fake encounter of Haryana-based gangster Sandeep Gadoli here. 

Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has released video message appealing to people in the state to maintain and restrain peace.

In the video, the CM appeals everyone to help the government bring back normalcy to the state. "I appeal everyone to help the Govt to bring back peace and normalcy in the state," Mehbooba says in the video.

The toll in the Italy train collision has gone up to 20.

Twenty people have been killed and dozens more hurt in a head-on collision involving two passenger trains in southern Italy, officials say. The two trains were on a single-track line at the time of the crash, between the coastal towns of Bari and Barletta.

Just in: Raj Babbar has been appointed the UP Congress Committee president, in effect the UP Congress chief. Making the announcement Ghulam Nabi Azad who is the UP poll in-charge said that the name of the CM will be decided later once the campaign begins. He admitted that Congress workers want Priyanka Gandhi to campaign across the state, but remained mum on whether she would step in beyond the family boroughs of Amethi and Rae Barelli.

Delhi High Court on Tuesday protected the estranged wife of former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and their children from being evicted from their government residence here till July 28.

Justice Indermeet Kaur asked the Centre not to take any coercive steps against Payal Abdullah and her two sons till next date pursuant to the eviction order of June 30.

The court asked the Ministries of Urban Development and Home Affairs to reply to the petitioners plea that if they are found to be entitled to an alternate government accommodation then the Centre be directed not to evict them till a suitable residence is alloted to them and it is cleared and equipped by the security personnel.


The Estate officer, Resident Commission, Government of Jammu and Kashmir was asked by the court to respond to the plea that petitioners should not be evicted or a suitable alternate accommodation be allotted to them where they can be effectively protected.

In their plea, the wife and sons of Omar Abdullah, have claimed the Centre, through a letter dated September 9, 2015, allotted the 7 Akbar Road bungalow to the state of Jammu and Kashmir as the Chief Ministers residence with retrospective effect from August 11, 2009, without following the due process of law, which was thus illegal.

They have contended that even now the website of the Department of Hospitality and Protocol of Government of Jammu and Kashmir shows that the residence of Chief Minister of the state was at 5, Prithviraj Road.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, during the hearing, told the court that the petitioners were not entitled to stay on at the premises as Omar Abdullah was no longer the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

Just in: One person killed in fresh firing by security forces in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, police sources.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh approves compensation of Rs 5 lakh for the civilian victims of cross border firing along the border. The compensation given to those who die due to terrorism or Maoist violence has been increased from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, says the home ministry.

Rs 5 lakh will also be given to those who receive 50 per cent or more disability or incapacitation due to the same reasons.

The compensation amount will be given subject to the condition that no employment has been provided to any of the family members of the victims by state or central government.

A formal notification in this regard will be issued by the Home Ministry after taking an approval of the Union Cabinet soon, the official said.

More than 50 civilians die every year due to shelling and cross border firing along the Indo-Pak order in Jammu and Kashmir.

A woman on trial in one of Germany's worst infanticide cases, involving eight dead babies, confessed today to killing several of them but said she could not remember how many.

Andrea Goeppner, 45, was charged with four of the murders after the babies' remains were found wrapped in towels and plastic bags last year in a case that revulsed the country. Asked how many of the eight she confessed to killing, her defence lawyer Till Wagler said, "it could have been two, three or four".

Prosecutors were unable to pursue murder charges for the other four infants, as one was found to have been stillborn and three were so badly decomposed that it was unclear whether they were viable at birth.

The grisly remains were uncovered last year in Goeppner's apartment in the Bavarian small town of Wallenfels. The woman's estranged husband, Johann Goeppner, 55, is charged with complicity for failing to stop the killings, which took place between 2003 and 2013.

In her confession, read out by her lawyer, the mother said she had given birth to each of the eight babies at home alone and had wrapped every infant in a hand towel. She would promptly suffocate any baby that moved or cried, then place the body in a plastic bag or containers and hide it in the apartment, said Wagler.

The pair had each brought two children into the marriage, and the couple conceived three more surviving children together, the court heard. Even though they did not want any more children, they used no contraceptives, and Andrea Goeppner was almost constantly pregnant over a decade.

An angry China today rejected as "null and void" the verdict of a UN-backed international tribunal which struck down its claims over the South China Sea saying Beijing has no "historic rights" in the disputed area. China "neither accepts nor recognises" the ruling of a tribunal in the South China Sea arbitration established at the request of the Philippines, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.


"The award is null and void and has no binding force," it said in a statement minutes after the five judge tribunal appointed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration delivered its judgement striking down Beijing's claims of historic rights over the area, strongly disputed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea (SCS) shall under no circumstances be affected by those awards. China opposes and will never accept any claim or action based on those awards, the statement quoted by state-run Xinhua new agency said.


"China has territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea," said a separate statement titled 'Statement of the Government of the People's Republic of China on China's Territorial Sovereignty and Maritime Rights and Interests in the South China Sea'.

Cricketer-turned politician and Chairman of opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan has married for the third time in a simple ceremony in London, according to media reports today.


The news of the marriage surfaced after 63-year-old Khan in a recent interview said that he might consider marrying for the third time after his two marriages ended in divorces.


Duynia TV reported that Khan has "completed hat-trick of marriages", a cricketing jargon used when a bowler takes three wickets on consecutive deliveries.


It said Khan married a woman belonging to Maneka family in a simple ceremony few days back in London. Geo TV reported that Khan decided to get marry at the suggestion of female spiritualist called 'Pinki' of influential Maneka family from Punjab province.


Other TV channels reported that Khan was seen with his wife in London where he had gone to spent vacation with his two sons. There was no definite report about his third (would be) wife.


Though, Geo identified her with single name Mariam. However, Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party rejected the news as rumor and said he will be back soon to take up political challenges. "This is not true. We are seeing the news channels and laughing," said Naeem ul Haq, Central Information Secretary of the party.


Khan last year married for the second time when he entered in wedlock with former BBC weather girl Reham Khan, but the marriage failed to prosper and the two separated before the end of the year. His first marriage was with Jemima Goldsmith (later Jemima Khan) of UK in 1995 but they separated in 2004

Image: Imran Khan with his second wife Reham Khan

Ten people have been killed and dozens more hurt in a head-on collision involving two passenger trains in southern Italy, BBC reports.

The two trains were on a single-track line at the time of the crash, between the coastal towns of Bari and Barletta.

Emergency services are trying to free passengers from the wrecked carriages near the town of Andria."I think there are many dead," local fire brigade commander Riccardo Zingaro said.

Expressing regret over the loss of lives and injuries in the clashes in Kashmir, UN chief Ban Ki-Moon has called on all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further violence and hoped that all concerns would be addressed through peaceful means.

The Secretary-General is closely following the recent clashes in Kashmir. He regrets the reported loss of dozens of lives and the injuries to many others, a statement issued by Bans spokesperson said today.

Earlier during the daily briefing on Monday, Bans spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the reports of the clashes in Kashmir, in which about 31 people have been killed so far and over 250 injured, are of concern to us.

Dujarric also rejected remarks by a Pakistani journalist that the UN chief, who had earlier in the day addressed the press on the situation in South Sudan, had brushed aside the Kashmir issue and was not taking note of the situation there.

I think no one is denying that we are concerned about the situation in Kashmir. The fact that the Secretary General did not raise it as he did not raise many other critical situations around the world does not mean that he is brushing anything aside, Dujarric said.

Tensions are rising in Kashmir where clashes have broken out between protesters and security personnel following the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani last week. 

7 terror suspects arrested in Hyderabad, have been sent to judicial custody till July 26 by NIA Special Court, reports news agency ANI

Sensex surges 181.45 to close at 27,808.14. Nifty closes at 8,524.10

attempts to strengthen the foundation of Indias culture, Union Communication and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had decided that the waters from the River Ganga will be distributed through the postal network.

But with Manoj Sinha, the new MoS Communication and IT, will the waters make it to people's homes? Sinha is from Uttar Pradesh and he does not want the controversy on the Ganga Jal project to be bequeathed to him, so he held a special briefing on this and will discuss the future of the project with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.

Ravi Shankar Prasad used to claim that he is the advocate for Lord Ram or Ram Lalla as he won the case in the Constitutional bench of the Allahabad High Court a few years ago.


The minister had proclaimed loudly, "I used to get several requests from people that the vast postal network be utilised to deliver Ganga water at home. I have directed the Department of Posts to utilise the e-commerce platform and make the arrangement of providing pure Ganga Jal from Haridwar and Rishikesh to the people, Ravi Shankar Prasad had said.

Will Sinha water it down?

Subramanian Swamy reacts to the National Herald verdict (Please, scroll down): "Delhi HC judgement is not on law but on procedure. I will return to Patiala House for documents again and let court follow the HC procedure."

Here's the backgrounder on the South China Sea dispute. Read

An international Hague tribunal has finally given its ruling over a centuries-old maritime dispute between the Philippines and China. The courts findings could call into question Beijings wider claims to the South China Sea and spark a potentially destabilising reaction from China.


The tribunal has ruled that China has no historical title to the South China sea. China has reacted saying the tribunal's ruling is ill-founded.

Control of the South China Sea is the most contentious and explosive diplomatic issue in east Asia, with China asserting sovereignty over maritime areas that span 3.5m square kilometres but are also claimed by Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Japan. Washington has become deeply involved, backing those against China and conducting military patrols.

Although the case was raised by the Philippines, it will affect all these countries as it questions the legality of Chinas nine-dash line, a dotted marker in Chinese maps stretching hundreds of miles south and east from the mainland.

National Herald case: Relief to Rahul and Sonia Gandhi as the Delhi HC sets aside trial court order. Petitioner and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy. will not get the documents that had been summoned by the trial court.

The trial court had summoned various documents from the Finance Ministry and other agencies and the party's 2010-11 balance-sheet.

The High Court had earlier on April 18 reserved its order on the pleas of Congress leaders challenging summoning of documents from different ministries in connection with this case filed by Swamy.

A Delhi Court had on March 11 given its nod to Swamy's plea, seeking the balance sheets of the Indian National Congress (INC) and Associated Journals Pvt Limited (AJL) for the purpose of investigation in this case.

Swamy had on March 1 approached a Delhi Court seeking summoning of certain documents related to the financial details of Congress, AJL and Young Indian Pvt. Ltd.

In an application moved before Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen, Swamy sought to summon the balance sheet, receipts, income and expenditure statements for assessment years 2010- 11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 of the INC, AJL and Young Indian Pvt. Ltd.

Besides the Congress president and her son, Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda are the other accused in this case.

NIA arrests Hyderabad ISIS module chief Yasir Niamatullah and Athaullah Rehman, who raised funds.

Investigating a suspected terror module of ISIS in Hyderabad, the NIA today said the accused were tech-savvy and using a modern software to secure their email conversation with their handler in Syria.

According to the NIA, the alleged kingpin Mohammed Ibrahim Yazdani was using 'tutanota' software, a secure encryption mail to be in touch with his handler abroad. The coordinates of places where logistics like weapons were to be delivered, were sent to him by his handler through this email.

Tutanota is a combination of Latin words "tuta" and "nota" meaning "secure message". It provides a platform for not having any personal data and also does not log Internet Protocol address to secure locations of sender or receiver.

The platform encrypts data including its subject, content and attachments.

Yazdani had also purchased a weighing machine from a shop at Biwi bazar for weighing explosive precursors and chemicals, the NIA alleged.

Another accused Abdullah Bin Ahmed Al Amoodi alias 'Fahad' had procured nine Aircel preactivated SIMs from a promotional temporary stall at Charminar bus stop.

Subsequently he had purchased five Chinese mobile phones from a mobile shop at the Charminar bus stop so that they can be used in their planning and operations.

The NIA had on June 22 lodged a common FIR against ISIS for "criminal conspiracy to wage war against the government of India" by collecting weapons and explosive materials to target public places, religious sites and sensitive government buildings in various parts of country and arrested five persons in this connection.

The agency has alleged that the five had acquired weapons and explosive materials to carry out terror attacks and were in touch with the banned ISIS. They were getting directions for planning and executing terrorist activities from ISIS, which has captured various towns and cities in Iraq and Syria.

President Pranab Mukherjee with author Amitav Ghosh and his wife Deborah Baker during the Writer-In-Residence Programme at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Just in: Sardar Singh removed as hockey team skipper. PR Sreejesh named captain, SV Sunil named vice captain. However, Sardar Singh remains in the 16-member squad for the Rio Olympics.

The Indian women's hockey team captain Ritu Rani fails to make the cut for the Indian Hockey team to represent India at the Rio Olympics.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has gone out not with a bang, nor a whimper, but a mystery tune.

He appeared to be humming a little tune to himself as he walked away from cameras after announcing he would hand over power to his successor Theresa May on Wednesday.

Cameron stepped away still wearing his lapel microphone and could be heard singing to himself as he reached the door of 10 Downing Street, his official residence, in video footage broadcast by ITV.

As the door opened, he could be heard saying "Right!" before it closed behind him and a scratching sound was audible, indicating the microphone was removed.

"Do doooooooo, do doooo," he sang to himself, according to the clip sent by BBC reporter Daniel Sandford.

Moments earlier the departing Conservative Party leader had announced: "We'll have a new prime minister in that building behind me by Wednesday evening".

It wasn't immediately clear what tune Cameron was singing, but the social media world poured forth with often-satirical suggestions. One writer opined that Cameron had just unwittingly revealed the secret "Open Sesame" musical code for the Downing Street door.

Another theorized that it was Cameron's personal "game over" videogame hook.

Some thought they detected a hint of "The West Wing" theme tune.Soon, hastily remastered clips of Cameron's doings accompanied to the beats of Dr. Dre were doing the social media rounds.

Bloomberg's Rob Hutton said it sounded like the beginning of the theme song for the hit US political drama series "West Wing", while ITV's Robert Peston said it was just a "Winnie-the-Pooh style hum".

Delhi: Meeting underway between Congress UP incharge Ghulam Nabi Azad and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra at Azad's residence in New Delhi. Before meeting Azad Priyanka met Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Reports suggest that Priyanka is likely to lead the poll campaign across UP. In the earlier state elections and in the Lok Sabha polls she only campaigned in the Gandhi bastions of Amethi and Rae Barelli.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka may together kick-start the party's campaign for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections at a workers' meeting in Lucknow next month.

Ankur Bhardwaj @Bhayankur  A page in Greater Kashmir today.

Following backlash on social media over 'Shaktiman' being given more importance than the cops who lost their lives, the Uttarakhand Government has removed the statue of the police horse installed at the Police Lines in Dehradun.

"The statue was here till last evening. Today morning when I came here, it wasn't here. It was a horse statue. I don't know where did it vanish,' a local resident told ANI.

Chief Minister Harish Rawat was supposed to inaugurate the 'Shaktiman Park' named after the police horse, who was critically maimed in a BJP rally carried out by MP Ganesh Joshi earlier on March 14.

However, Rawat skipped the inaugural ceremony Monday and left the venue soon after his visit.Shaktiman was a well-trained 13-year-old horse of the Uttarakhand Mounted Police.

When the horse was deployed by the police during a BJP rally, Joshi had allegedly attacked the horse's leg with a baton, critically injuring the animal. The outrage over this incident of gross animal abuse grew so large that Joshi was briefly arrested.The white Kathiawari horse succumbed to its injuries on April 20.

Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria has said that the Kashmir dispute has international ramifications and rejected India's assertion that it is an internal matter where Islamabad has no role to play and should have no role to play.

"The dispute of Kashmir has international recognition. It is not an internal matter of India. Such an assertion is a violation of UN Security Council's Resolutions," The Express Tribune quoted Zakira, as saying.


He said the current situation on the Indian side of Kashmir is a manifestation of what Kashmiris wanted, their right to self-determination. Reportedly, Pakistan has decided to be aggressive diplomatically on the Kashmir issue.


A senior Foreign Office official said Islamabad has directed all diplomatic missions, particularly those in key world capitals, to brief the host governments about the current situation in Kashmir.

Justice at last for the family of the victims massacred at the Peshawar Army Public school.

The mastermind behind the December 2014 massacre has been killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, senior Pakistani security officials claimed.

The officials told Dawn on Monday that Umar Mansour was killed, along with another militant leader Qari Saifullah, in the US drone attack in the Bandar area of Afghanistan's Nangarhar province on Saturday.

One of the officials said they had credible reports of Mansour having been killed with Saifullah, who was in charge of suicide bombers. "What we have is pretty credible," the official said.

On May 25, the US State Department had declared Umar Mansour a global terrorist, thus clearing the path for his inclusion in the hit-list.The State Department's announcement came four days after a drone strike killed Afghan Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour in Balochistan on May 21.

Mansour orchestrated the attack on December 16, 2014, on the Army Public School which killed 122 students and 22 teachers. It was one of the worst terrorist attacks which prompted the government to declare an all-out war against terrorist outfits in the country.Mansour and Saifullah belonged to Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan's (TTP) Tariq Geedar group and used to operate in Peshawar and adjoining Frontier Region Peshawar and Darra Adamkhel.Mansour fled to Afghanistan following a military operation in Khyber tribal region and continued to operate from there.

He was held responsible for the September 2015 attack on a Pakistan Air Force base in Peshawar's Badaber area, which killed 29 people.He was also behind the January 2016 attack on the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda in which 18 students and faculty members lost their lives.

Image: Kids being escorted to safety on the day of the attack.

Mumbai police today intercepted a young man from Kerala who was on his way to Syria, with sources saying he could be "helpful" in cracking the disappearance of nearly two dozen Malayalees since they went abroad last month. "We are questioning him. We intimated Kerala police and a team from there has arrived in Mumbai. He could be helpful in tracking down the remaining young men," said a source in the Maharashtra anti-terror squad. Sources said Firoz, a 20-year-old from Kerala's Kasargode district, was on his way to Syria to join the Islamic State.  Read more

British explorer Cairn Energy has sought USD 5.6 billion in compensation from the Indian government for raising a retrospective tax demand of Rs 29,047 crore on 10-year old internal reorganisation of its India unit.


In a 160-page 'Statement of Claim' filed with an international arbitration panel on June 28, the Edinburgh-based company sought withdrawal of the tax demand and declaring that India has "failed to uphold its obligations" under the UK-India Investment Treaty by not giving its investments in the country "fair and equitable treatment."


It sought USD 1.05 billion in compensation for the loss of value its 9.8 per cent shareholding in its erstwhile subsidiary Cairn India suffered following Income Tax Department raising the tax demand in January 2014 and attaching the shares.


"In the alternative, and should the (arbitration) Tribunal determine not to order India to refrain from enforcing its unlawful tax demand", Cairn sought to be compensated of breaches of the Investment Treaty by being paid for the loss of value of its holding in Cairn India as well as interest and penalties, totalling USD 5.587 billion (Rs 37,400 crore).


The total compensation sought is equal to the tax demand raised and the value of Cairn Energy's 9.8 per cent shareholding in Cairn India.

Former J-K CM reacts to PM Narendra Modi's high-level meeting at his residence to review the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.Kashmir has been witnessing violent clashes between security forces and protesters in the aftermath of killing of Hizbul Mujahideen's poster boy Burhan Wani. The death toll stands at 24.

The PM's meeting was attended by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Minister of State for PMO Jitendra Singh, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar among others.

Omar tweets, "I understand if @MehboobaMufti didn't leave the state to attend but why not by video conference? State unrepresented. We set up video links for all sorts of meaningless things but here where it matters to have @MehboobaMufti involved in the process - nothing."


Yesterday Abdullah tweeted, "Those who glorify the stone pelting and violence should spare a thought for the family of this dead policeman. RIP. "

One policeman died when he was thrown into the Jhelum by protesters.

Abdullah also said he was with the J-K CM over the fresh outbreak of violence. "Dear @MehboobaMufti We in @JKNC_ are always ready to contribute towards maintaining peace but you must take the lead & show the way. This is the time to lead from the front. You must accept the responsibility both for letting things get to this point as for the recovery. Please don't take the easy option of hiding behind your spokesperson & your police officers. No one elected them, the people elected you.
More than anyone else I know what you're going through @MehboobaMufti & I can assure you that we will follow your lead but lead YOU must. The @JKNC_ will never be an irresponsible party & opposing you will never mean setting the state on fire for narrow political ends."

Yesterday Home Minister Rajnath Singh had met Sonia Gandhi and Omar Abdullah over the violence in the state. Omar tweeted, "HM @rajnathsingh ji spoke to me earlier today. I told him that until security forces exercise maximum restraint & stop killing protestors..." 

Bihars dry law is going to be scarier. By the end of this month, once the proposed amendments to the New Excise Act, promulgated only three months ago, gets the approval of the State Legislature, the law will have more teeth. As per the proposed amendments, recovery of a bottle of liquor from anybodys house would mean arrest of all the adult male members of the family and even the neighbours. Read more

Pellet guns have been regularly used to quell protests in Kashmir since 2010, when the state police introduced them as "non-lethal weapon', their use has increased over the years. Read more

With 30 dead in Kashmir and curfew clamped in large swathes of the state amid the unrest over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen leader Burhan Wani this heartwarming story is a must read. Take a look.

BSF gunned down 3 Pakistani intruders at Shahpur post in Ajnala sector of the India-Pakistan international border, early this morning: Anil Paliwal, IG

hey may be thousands of miles apart -- but that didn't stop Black Lives Matter protesters in Europe marching in solidarity with their United States counterparts over the weekend.

Theresa May promised to build a "better Britain" and to make the UK's EU exit a "success" after she was announced as the new Tory leader and soon-to-be PM.

Kashmir is an internal matter of India, the US today said and asked all stakeholders to make efforts towards finding a peaceful resolution of tensions in the Valley following the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani last week. 

Three people are dead after a shooting at the Berrien County Courthouse.

At least three people were killed in a shooting at a courthouse on Monday in southwestern Michigan, an employee at the county prosecutor's office told the Detroit Free Press. 

South Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar ordered a ceasefire by his forces on Monday, reciprocating a move made his rival President Salva Kiir who had earlier ordered his SPLA army forces to halt fighting, he told the independent Eye Radio.

Theresa May to become UK's 2nd woman PM on Wednesday