LIVE! Sena says Maharashtra city named for Aurangzeb to be renamed

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Sat, 29 August 2015

Sena says Maharashtra city named for Aurangzeb to be renamed

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23:42 Sena says Maharashtra city named for Aurangzeb to be renamed

Welcoming the New Delhi Municipal Council's decision to rename the Aurangazeb road in the national capital as Dr APJ Abdul Kalam road, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray today said the Aurangabad city in central Maharashtra too would be renamed as 'Sambhaji Nagar'.

Aurangabad, an industrial centre now, was once a prominent Mughal city in the Deccan, and derives its name from the Emperor Aurangzeb. The Sena chief said, "We welcome Delhi corporation's decision. On the same lines, we would rename Aurangabad city as Sambhaji Nagar." Further, the Aurangabad airport should be renamed as Raje Sambhaji Maharaj Airport, he said.

For Geeta, stranded in a foreign land for past 13 years, the festival of Raksha Bandhan may have passed as any other day. But she has now found a brother in her custodian, Faisal Edhi.The annual Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan, where sisters tie a thread 'rakhi' around their brother's hand to commemorate the bond between sisters and brothers, was celebrated across the country on Saturday. At the Edhi center in Mithadar, the happy and smiling Geeta, unaware of the whereabouts of her original family, tied a red colored 'Rakhi' around the wrist of Faisal and treated him with sweets.

Read more HERE

Some witnesses have identified one out of four arrested accused in connection with blogger Niladri Chattopadhyay murder, police said. DB Deputy Commissioner (east) Mahbub Alam, supervising Niloy murder case probe, confirmed about the matter to the Dhaka Tribune.

Terming it as a progress on Niloy murder case, the official said: "Among the witnesses, some identified one arrested as they saw him in the crime spot. We will send all four arrested for DNA tests for further development on the issue."

22:08 PM Modi to have 'Mann ki baat' tomorrow

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will conduct his 'Mann Ki Baat' programme will be aired on August 30, 2015. The program will be aired tomorrow at 11.00 am. Narendra Modi took to his official Twitter handle to share about the same. Modi tweeted: 'Don't miss tomorrow's #MannKiBaat 11 am."

Raising concerns over the rise in Muslim population in the religious data of Census, the RSS publication Organiser has wondered if the the trend is a "larger conspiracy to Islamise Bharat".

At the same time, the editorial termed the decline in Sikhs and Buddhists numbers in religious data of Census as "worrisome" and said whenever indigenous faiths have declined separatist tendencies increase and called for concrete policy measures to correct it.

Noting that growth rate of Hindus and Muslim in India is inversely proportionate and the imbalance is increasing in the last three decades, with the community registered such growth the consecutive third time, it said Muslims share rose by the same 0.8 percentage points between 1981-1991 and 1991-2001 in total population of the country.

The Jharkhand high court today took suo motu cognisance of a newspaper report and directed the state to give an assistance of Rs 1 lakh and facilitate better treatment to a minor rape victim whose father had to carry her physically to the nearest health centre for treatment.

Taking suo motu cognisance of an English daily report today that the nine-year-old victims father carried her to get treatment from the nearest health centre four km away in East Singhbhum district, the bench of Chief Justice Virendra Singh also directed the government to submit a detailed report of the case and what measures were being taken to stop such crimes.

As per the report, a daily wage labourer in Jharkhands Hatiapata village covers four km on foot carrying his daughter physically to get her treated at the nearest health centre after she underwent an operation in Ranchi following the crime on her by a driver some time ago.

The father has been quoted in the story as saying that he does not even have a cycle to take his daughter to the health centre.

Turkish planes have for the first time joined raids by the US-led coalition against Islamic State positions in Syria, the Turkish foreign ministry said today. "Our fighter planes ... along with planes from the coalition yesterday evening began joint operations against IS targets which pose a threat to the security of our country," it said in a statement.

Indrani Mukerjea, her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna and her driver Shyam Manohar Rai will now be taken to the spot in Raigad where the body of Indrani's daughter Sheena was allegedly dumped.

According to the police, this will help them in recreating the heinous crime. For the last 24 hours, the three accused have been questioned continuously by the cops together.

20:17 Julian Assange fears assassination

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange fears he might be assassinated if he steps outside the Ecuadorian embassy. In an interview, Assange said he has not had any fresh air or sunlight for three years because it is too dangerous to leave the building.

He told the magazine: "There are security issues with being on the balcony. There have been bomb threats and assassination threats from various people."Despite believing it is "not likely" that he will be shot, he worries that if he is ever free he could be kidnapped or "droned" by the CIA.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today went to holy town Haridwar to celebrate Raksha Bandhan and spend some time with his sister Dr Ranjana Gupta. After tying the rakhi to Kejriwal, Ranjana wished for a 'corruption free India' as a token of gift. "I wish he achieves his dream of making India corruption free," Dr Ranjana Gupta said.

19:54

JUST IN: Police interrogating Indrani Mukerjea's son Mikhail Boraat a hotel in suburban Bandra in Sheena Bora murder case.

19:22 AAP suspends Dharamavira Gandhi and Harinder Singh Khalsa for anti-party activities

The Political Affairs Committee of the Aam Aadmi Party today suspended Dharamavira Gandhi and Harinder Singh Khalsa from the primary membership of the party and referred disciplinary proceedings against them to party's National Disciplinary Action Committee. According to AAP's statement, Gandhi and Khalsa were trying to establish a parallel organisation within the party with the sole objective of damaging the party in Punjab.

18:50

JUST IN: Third gold for Usain Bolt at the worlds as Jamaica win 4x100m relay in 37.36 secs.

18:50 'US had 31% of world's public mass shooters from 1966-2012'

The US was the site of 31 per cent of the world's public mass shootings from 1966-2012, despite having only 5 per cent of the world's population, according to a new study. According to a research by Adam Lankford, associate professor of criminal justice at The University of Alabama, a combination of American exceptionalism, American gun culture and stressors are potential factors in explaining the commonality of public mass shooters in the US.

18:20 Sania Mirza conferred with Khel Ratna award

Tennis star Sania Mirza receives the Rajiv Khel Ratna award from President of India Pranab Mukherjee at a sparkling event in New Delhi. Sania is only the second tennis player after Leander Paes to be named for India's highest sporting award. Earlier, Sania had said, "We play for the country and if the government gives recognition for our achievement, we feel a sense of pride. I thank the sports ministry for nominating me for the award."

17:43 Why the Patels want to be known as Backward

India deployed thousands of security forces on Wednesday after clashes between police and affirmative-action protesters from a caste group traditionally known as diamond traders and merchants turned violent, leaving four dead.

The demonstrators from the Patidar community, many of whose members use the surname Patel want India's government to recognize them as a "backward class," a designation that would give them a leg up in getting civil-service jobs, university spots and other benefits.

Read more HERE

On the occasion of Raksha Bandhan, Union minister Piyush Goyal said that as many as 51,000 women and girls of Varanasi will be insured under the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana as a gift from the prime minister. The Union minister said that the scheme was a brainchild of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to empower a large number of women.

17:16 Mikhail was the next target: Police sources

JUST IN: Police sources are now saying that Sanjeev Khanna has now confirmed that Mikhail Bora, brother of Sheena, was indeed the next target.

Mikhail had claimed that on the pretext of discussing a property deal, he was given a spiked drink in his hotel room in Worli by Indrani and Sanjeev, who then left to meet and murder Sheena.

By the time they came back, the suspicious, groggy Mikhail had fled.

Tens of thousands of Malaysians marched in a massive anti-government rally here today demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak following weeks of simmering anger over corruption allegations against the premier.

Online reports said there were at least 40,000 protesters in the rally in downtown Kuala Lumpur.

Unfazed by hundreds of police which had declared the rally as unlawful, thousands carrying placards joined the protest organised by Bersih, a coalition of NGOs which has also called for electoral reforms and transparency. Public disenchantment has been rapidly on the rise after leaked documents published by the Wall Street Journal showed that Najib received some $700 million in his private bank accounts from Malaysia's indebted state fund 1MDB.

He later said the money was a donation from the Middle East. Protesters in yellow Bersih T-shirts and headbands gathered at several points with the intent to march towards the Merdeka (independence) square where celebrations to mark Malaysia's 58th National Day will be held on Monday. The

Two Janata Dal-United members of Legislative Assembly and one Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA on Saturday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in Patna, a day ahead of the Swabhiman rally of the grand alliance of the JD-U, the RJD and the Congress.

BJP state president Mangal Pandey said that Sunil Kumar and Renu Kushwaha have joined the party and RJD MLA Braj Kishore Singh has joined the party.

"All three of them have resigned from their respective parties and joined

the BJP," Pandey said.

Last week four rebel JD-U MLAs, suspended from the party for six years, joined the saffron party.

They were Gayanendra Singh Gayanu, Rajeshwar Raj, Dinesh Kushwaha and Suresh

Chanchal.

Singh was considered close to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar before he revolted against him last year.The JD-U had suspended them for involvement in "anti-party activities".

According to BJP leaders, some more JD-U legislators are expected to join the BJP ahead of the assembly polls scheduled for later this year.

At least 18 army jawans were injured in an explosion at an army camp today in south Kashmir's Pulwama district.

"As many as 18 army jawans have been injured in an explosion at army's Corps Battle School at Khrew in Awantipora area of Pulwama," Defence spokesman Col N N Joshi told PTI.

He said all the injured personnel have been airlifted to 92 Base Hospital at Badamibagh Cantonment here for specialised treatment.

Three Al-Jazeera journalists were today sentenced to three years in prison by an Egyptian court for spreading false news and endangering national security, in a case that has triggered an international outcry.

The three -- Canadian national Mohammed Fahmy, Australian journalist Peter Greste and Egyptian producer Baher Mohammed -- were sentenced after a lengthy retrial.

At least three other co-defendants, accused of working with Al-Jazeera, received similar sentences.

All three were convicted last year on charges that included conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood, spreading false news and endangering national security, but they have maintained their innocence, saying they were simply reporting the news.

The Mumbai police team, probing the mysterious Sheena Bora murder, have a lot to thank Ganesh Dhene, a village official in Pen tehsil of Raigad district, for helping them locate the spot where Sheena was allegedly buried in 2012.

A team of police, forensic experts and villagers had yesterday exhumed skeletal remains after Dhene, a Police Patil, identified the exact spot where Sheena's body was allegedly dumped in the forests there three years ago.

Early last morning, the team of police officials and forensic experts from Mumbai had reached Gagode Budruk village in Pen teshil and the digging had started around 6 am.

They learnt of Police Patil Ganesh Dhene of Hetevne village, who was present when the body was found at the crime scene on May 23, 2012, and also when it was later buried there by the police the same day.

Police in Bangkok say they have arrested a man in connection with a bomb that killed 20 people in the Thai capital nearly two weeks ago.

Officers raided an apartment used by the man in northern Bangkok on Saturday and found possible bomb-making materials, a police spokesman said.The suspect "looks like the one we are looking for", said the spokesman.

Read this story HERE

The Delhi high court today set aside an order of its single judge which had directed the Centre to confer Dronacharya Award 2015 on former chief national wrestling coach Vinod Kumar.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice G Rohini asked the single judge to look afresh into the plea by Kumar, who had moved the high court against Dronacharya Award selection committee for ignoring him for the prestigious honour.

The court's direction came on the plea filed by Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports challenging a single judge order which was passed yesterday. The ministry had sought an urgent hearing as the award ceremony is scheduled to be held today.

he Associated Press has sued the US Department of Justice over the FBI's failure to provide public records related to the creation of a fake news story used to plant surveillance software on a suspect's computer.

AP joined with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to file the lawsuit in US District Court for the District of Columbia.

At issue is a 2014 Freedom of Information request seeking documents related to the FBI's decision to send a web link to the fake article to a 15-year-old boy suspected of making bomb threats to a high school near Olympia, Washington.

The link enabled the FBI to infect the suspect's computer with software that revealed its location and Internet address.

After successful launch of GSAT-6, the country's latest communication satellite into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, Indian Space Research Organisation today said it has performed the first orbit raising of the satellite.

"First orbit raising operation of GSAT-6 was successfully completed by firing the Apogee Motor for 3385 seconds at 08:35 hrs IST on August 28," ISRO said.

Realised orbit is 8,408 km (perigee height) by 35,708 km (apogee height) with an inclination of 7.5 degree and an orbital period of 13 hours, 15 minutes and 24 sec, it said. ISRO on Thursday had successfully launched GSAT-6, having an indigenous cryogenic engine, on-board the GSLV-D6 rocket from the spaceport at Sriharikota.

The day-long state-wide bandh called by YSR Congress over the special category status issue for Andhra Pradesh began today with party workers and leaders staging protests in front of bus deports belonging to the State Road Transport Organisation.

As precautionary measure, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada city police have taken over 250 persons into preventive custody. YSR Congress president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has appealed to people to make the bandh a success.

Most of the important leaders were either taken into preventive custody or kept in "house arrest", a senior YSRCP leader alleged.

"Keeping in view the seriousness of the situation, we temporarily stopped plying buses in sensitive routes," a senior official of APSRTC said.

12:22 Pak bans Islamic State militant group

Pakistan has banned the Islamic State militant group that has overrun vast stretches of Iraq and Syria after repeatedly denying the dreaded outfit's presence within its territory.

"The Islamic State or Daesh has been banned in Pakistan," an Interior Ministry official said today. The decision was taken on recommendation of the Foreign Office, which regularly updates the Pakistan government about international militant groups banned by the United Nations.

Banners and graffiti in support of the IS, also known as Daesh in Arabic, have often appeared in Pakistan but the government has until now rejected its presence inside the country.

However, the official said the outfit has been declared a proscribed entity. The group -- which is banned under a UN sanctions regime -- is believed to have gained a foothold in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

12:11

JUST IN: Health of Havaldar Abhilekh Singh, who was sitting on the OROP hunger strike at Delhi's Jantar Mantar has worsened and he has been rushed to the hospital.

11:23 How does Usain Bolt run so fast?

Usain Bolt showed his dominance of men's sprinting at the athletics World Championship in Beijing this week with wins in the 100m and 200m. What's his secret? Is the way to win at sprinting to move your legs faster than your rivals do?

Read this story HERE

When it comes to his assessment of world leaders, Sen. Marco Rubio isn't pulling any punches: Russia's run by a "gangster" and North Korea a "lunatic.

"The 2016 Republican presidential candidate made a foreign policy speech Friday morning in South Carolina, in which he riffed on his unvarnished opinions on various enemies of the United States.His harshest words were reserved for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Read this story HERE

Mukhtar Ahmad reports from Srinagar: 10 army soldiers were wounded in a blast at Khrew in the outskirts of Srinagar this morning. A senior police officer said that a grenade went off accidentally inside the camp, injuring the soldiers.

The injured soldiers have been evacuated to the hospital for treatment.

Image for representation only

President Barack Obama has strongly defended the landmark Iranian nuclear deal, saying it blocks every pathway for Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons and was in the interest of both the United States and Israel.

Addressing the concerns of the Jewish community ahead of a crucial congressional vote next month, Obama in a webcast from the White House said, "this deal blocks every pathway that Iran might take in order to obtain a nuclear weapon." Because of the stringency of the deal, a vast majority of experts on nuclear proliferation have endorsed this deal, he asserted.

Obama yesterday said the world is more or less united, with some exceptions of Israel around the deal.

"People have said that, well, Iran will cheat. They are not trustworthy. I keep on emphasising we do not trust Iran. Iran is antagonistic to the US. It is anti-Semitic. It has denied the Holocaust. It has called for the destruction of Israel. It is an unsavoury regime," he said, adding that Iran is a regional power and not a superpower.

It was almost another tragedy.But with a boost from social media, an anonymous pen seller in Beirut, Lebanon became a Syrian refugee success story.

Read this heart warming story HERE

09:45 This week in history: 24 - 30 August

From the BBC: The week that Barack Obama became the first African American to win the presidential nomination for a major US political party, East Timor held its first democratic elections, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, and Big Ben struck again after being out of action for three weeks.

The focus in the high-profile Sheena Bora murder case has now shifted to the forensic analysis of the skeletal remains found in Raigad district where her body was allegedly dumped three years ago.

"We have sent the bones and other skeletal remains for forensic analysis and are awaiting report," a police official said. JJ Hospital had yesterday handed over to Khar police a few bones it had received from Raigad Police in 2012.

Police are also probing Mikhail Bora's claim that just hours before Indrani and Sanjeev Khanna met Sheena Bora on April 24, 2012 and took her for what would be the last drive of her life, Indrani had also allegedly drugged her son, Mikhail.

Mikhail has claimed that on the pretext of discussing a property deal, he was given a spiked drink in his hotel room in Worli by Indrani and Sanjeev, who then left to meet and murder Sheena.

09:23 Two Naxals killed in Jharkhand

Two Naxals were killed during an encounter with the Central Reserve Police Force in Jharkhand's Khunti District late on Friday.

Jharkhand police confirmed that they had also recovered several arms and rounds of ammunition from the encounter site.

Russia today successfully launched a Proton rocket with a British satellite in the first such launch since an engine failure in May resulted in a Mexican satellite being destroyed.

A Proton-M rocket carrying an Inmarsat-5 F3 communications satellite launched from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1144 GMT as scheduled, Russia's space agency said.

"The launch went as planned," spokesman for the Russian space agency Roscosmos Igor Burenkov told AFP.

"All the systems operated remarkably well."

The launch is crucial for Inmarsat, Britain's biggest satellite operator, which said that together with two other satellites, the spacecraft will help create "the world's first globally available, high-speed mobile broadband service, delivered through a single provider."

04:05 UK takes anti-ISIS fight to Twitter

The UK government has created a dedicated Twitter feed to counter the so-called Islamic State terrorist group that has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

The @UKAgainstISIL account will provide "updates on the UK government's ongoing work to defeat ISIL".

Four posts have been made since it was set up yesterday, including a video explaining the role the UK is playing in the fight to defeat the terror group.

The footage says Britain is "militarily removing territory from ISIL" and "cutting off ISIL finances".

One of the posts read: "To protect Britons at home we have disrupted ISIL-linked terror plots, stopped people wanting to do harm from reaching the UK.

"Worked with the internet industry to remove extremist propaganda and arrested 203 people for Syria-related terror offences."

Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, often uses social media to spread its views.

A US study earlier this year had claimed there were at least 46,000 Twitter accounts operating on behalf of IS.

British forces have been carrying out airstrikes against ISIS militants in Iraq, but no action in Syria has been approved by Parliament.

There is speculation that British Prime Minister David Cameron will push for a vote to extend the UK's involvement when Parliament returns from its summer break next month.

Satellite images confirm the destruction of the Baal Shamin temple in Syria's Palmyra, the United Nations said today, after international condemnation of the act claimed by the Islamic State group.

The UN training and research agency UNITAR said its satellite programme had compared images of the site taken on June 26 and again on August 27.

"We confirm the destruction of the main building, while surrounding columns seem to be less affected," UNITAR said in a statement.

The grainy images show that the famed temple, considered the second-most significant in ancient Palmyra, "has been blown to bits," spokesman Einar Bjorgo told AFP.

"It has been flattened," he said.

The destruction, which reportedly happened last Sunday, just days after IS fighters beheaded the 82-year-old retired chief archaeologist of Palmyra, sparked widespread outrage.

The UN has slammed the destruction of the temple as a "war crime", and the act has raised concerns for the rest of the UNESCO World Heritage site.

Famed for its well-preserved Greco-Roman ruins, Palmyra was seized from government forces in May, prompting concerns IS might destroy it as it has other heritage sites in parts of Syria and Iraq under its control.

IS published images earlier this week showing militants placing barrels and small containers, presumably containing explosives, into the temple, as well as similar containers placed on parts of its columns.

01:03 Black holes may not be all that black

Want to know what happens after you pass through a black hole? Just look around you. You might land in another universe that is similar to our own, if Stephen Hawking is right. Or in a very different one.

The iconic astrophysicist joked about it this week as he unveiled a proposed solution to a deeply fundamental paradox that has confounded scientists and mathematicians for 40 years.

"The hole would need to be large and if it was rotating it might have a passage to another universe. But you couldn't come back to our universe," he said through his speech synthesizer. "So, although I'm keen on space flight, I'm not going to try that."

Hawking has Lou Gehrig's disease, also called ALS, and is confined to a wheelchair, but he has taken a zero-G ride in an airplane and has said he wants to personally travel into space.

It's not every day you get to meet a presidential candidate, let alone get invited up on stage to touch their hair.

So when Mary Margaret Bannister attended Thursday's Upstate Chamber Presidential Series with her husband here to hear what Trump had to say, she never imagined she would be onstage in front of 1,400 performing an impromptu inspection of the alleged Trump toupee.

"It was a very bizarre experience," Bannister told CNN. "You know, I was just listening to the speech and then it just kind of happened. He made eye contact with me," she said.

Trump called on Bannister randomly and swears he's never met her before, so in theory, Bannister was an impartial toupee-tester, or follicle feeler, per se.

"I think he definitely had in mind that he wanted to tell everybody that his hair was real and needed someone to come up," the stay-at-home mother of four and former school teacher told CNN.

President Barack Obama once more showed off his singing skills Thursday in New Orleans while he was touring a neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina 10 years ago.

Obama was walking through the neighborhood of Treme, a historic, predominantly black area that experienced significant flooding because of the storm. He was in town to mark the anniversary of Katrina and highlight the area's resilience and growth.

As he was visiting with residents of the neighborhood, Obama met a woman who called herself "Wheezy." Obama asked if it was "Wheezy" as in the classic sitcom "Sanford and Son," though the small crowd corrected him that it was a character on "The Jeffersons," instead.

Obama then sang a few bars of the seminal show's theme song, "Movin' on Up," laughing with the woman.

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