India

New Delhi, October 12: Nearly 10,000 phones are being lawfully tapped in various states, according to official data available today. Over 4,500 phones were intercepted during the month of August in addition to more than 5,000 phones which were already being tapped. The interception is ordered by various intelligence agencies, police forces and Army. Besides phones, nearly 1,200 email addresses

Hyderabad, October 12: A city court on Friday issued a non-bailable warrant against business tycoon Vijay Mallya and five others in a cheque bounce case. The 13th metropolitan sessions court issued the warrant against crisis-hit Kingfisher airlines in a case filed by GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), which manages the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here. The case was filed in

New Delhi, October 12: Voicing concern over frivolous and vexatious use of RTI Act, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday said the citizens' right to know should definitely be circumscribed if it encroaches on an individual's privacy. "There is a fine balance required to be maintained between the right to information and the right to privacy, which stems out of the fundamental right to life and

Mumbai, October 12: The Maharashtra government on Friday dropped sedition charge against cartoonist Aseem Trivedi. The decision to drop the charges against Trivedi was conveyed to Bombay high court on October 12, said a senior home department official. "The advocate general (AG), in his advice to the state government, has written that sedition charges slapped on the cartoonist should be dropped

Bhopal, October 12: BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said Congress-led UPA government was worse than "dacoits of Madhya Pradesh". "The dacoits of Madhya Pradesh were better than the Congress-led government at the Centre...a Rs 4.38 lakh crore scam was unheard of before," Gadkari said. He was addressing 'Yuva Sankalp' bike rally organised by the youth wing of BJP to mark the 150th birth

Chandigarh, October 12: Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh may be going to polls, but it's Punjab where Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has created a political storm. Reacting to his remark that "seven out of 10 youth in Punjab are addicted to drugs," the Punjab government hit back saying, "Rahul is a national joke" and sought an apology from him. This sharp reaction came from Harcharan Bains

New Delhi, October 12: Four UN agencies urged India to take "incremental action" to fight the scourge of child marriages in the country on Thursday when the first International Day of the Girl Child was observed across the world. The focus of the first observance of the day is on child marriage. In a letter to Union minister of women and child development Krishna Tirath, heads of four UN agencies

Kaushambi (Uttar Pradesh), October 11: A news channel alleged that the Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust, headed by Congress minister and Union law minister Salman Khurshid and his wife Louise Khurshid, had forged signatures of senior officials in several districts of Uttar Pradesh depriving disabled people of their money. According to a TV report, the Union ministry for social welfare and empowerment

Geneva, October 11: An innovative scheme to provide rural Indian communities with toilets and running water in every house has scooped the first Global+5 award in Geneva. “It’s more than water and sanitation, it's human dignity,” said Joe Madiath, head of the Mantra project (Movement and Action network for Transformation of Rural Lives), run by the Indian non-governmental group Gram Vikas

New Delhi, October 11: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said the government was mulling over incorporating provisions in the Prevention of Corruption Act to penalise bribe-givers as well, besides giving the law more teeth to tackle corporates indulging in corrupt practices. The amended law would give honest public servants more protection, he said, addressing the 19th Conference of the