With the level of river Ganga rising, the CBI constituted medical board to look into the alleged rape and murder of two girls in UP's Badaun district will exhume the bodies of the victims today for fresh autopsy.  

Reports have now suggested that the exhumation process has begun. CBI has earlier planned to carry out the process tomorrow but in the wake of rising levels of Ganga threatening to inundate the graves, the medical board has decided to do so today.        

\CBI sources said the agency has made all the arrangements to conduct fresh autopsy near the graves.        

Unless there is a compelling reason to do post-mortem elsewhere, the medical board will undertake the process on the spot.       

The sources said the board of three-forensic experts has recommended that fresh autopsy was needed before forming any opinion which will necessitate exhumation of bodies.        

Following the recommendation, CBI has taken permission from appropriate authority, to exhume the bodies and proceed with fresh postmortem.         The sources said there was no need to take consent of the family members and only permission required is from the local authorities.        

Concerns were raised by locals that level of Ganga river, which flows adjacent to the grave of the minors, is rising because of heavy rains in Uttarakhand and might inundate it.        

Major changes are in the offing in the way the PM's National Relief Fund is managed as Prime Minister Narendra Modi today directed that the Gujarat model should be emulated in selection of beneficiaries, giving priority to the poor and children.        

Modi reviewed the functioning of the Relief Fund and suggested several qualitative changes in the way the fund is managed, a PMO statement said.         Referring to the Gujarat model, he directed that the selection of beneficiaries should be done in a more comprehensive, scientific and humanitarian basis, giving priority to children, poor and cases from government hospitals, the statement said.        

Cases involving life-threatening diseases should be accorded priority and applications should be decided on need and merit, the Prime Minister added.        

He also directed that pendency in appeals for help should be minimised and the draw to select the cases should be conducted in a manner that does not leave out any genuine case.        

It was decided that a letter from the Prime Minister should be sent to all beneficiaries. Beneficiaries whose appeals have been approved for grant of relief will be informed through an SMS alert, it said.       

The PM National Relief Fund was established in 1948 with public contributions to assist displaced persons from Pakistan.        

The resources of the PMNRF are now utilised primarily to render immediate relief to families of those killed in natural calamities like floods, cyclones and earthquakes and to the victims of major accidents and riots.

A team of international observers say pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine have limited their access to the wreckage of a Malaysia Airlines plane. An OSCE spokesman said access to the site had been controlled by armed men, with one firing shots into the air.

It is believed flight MH17 crashed after being hit by a surface-to-air missile fired from a rebel-held area in east Ukraine on Thursday. All 298 people - including 80 children - on board died.

The Boeing 777 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It fell between Krasni Luch in Luhansk region and Shakhtarsk in the neighbouring region of Donetsk.

Read more on BBC

International monitors investigating the Malaysia Airlines crash in eastern Ukraine said Friday the team was not given full access to the site and was greeted with hostility by armed men.

"There didn't seem to be anyone really in control," Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe team, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

Armed men, apparently pro-Russia militants, loosely guarded the area but couldn't answer the monitors' questions, he said. Bociurkiw said the group only stayed about 75 minutes and examined about 200 meters at the scene before being forced to leave.

Pieces of the airplane and bodies are spread over several kilometers. The OSCE team arrived at the crash site near Torez in a remote section of eastern Ukraine that's controlled by pro-Russian militants battling the Ukraine government.

The United States says a surface-to-air missile, possibly fired by the militants, took down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on Thursday as the plane traveled from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. All 298 people on board died. U.N. Under Secretary General Feltman said 80 of the victims were children.

Read more on CNN

July 2 was an average day at school for this first grade student in Bangalore, until 11:30 am, when she was allegedly 'punished' for misbehaving.

Reports suggest the six-year-old at the elite Vibgyor High School was asked to leave the class and stay in an empty room used for storing gym equipment. The child reportedly told her mother that was when she was assaulted.She was allegedly raped by two gym instructors.

She reportedly returned to class 25 minutes later, looking uncomfortable. Hours later she complained of severe stomach pain.

Her mother would find out only seven days later.When a private nursing home hinted that the child could have been sexually assaulted, the parents went to the police.

Read more on NDTV

President Pranab Mukherjee is all set to offer prayers at the famous Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram.   The President arrived on his two-day visit to Kerala on Friday. After offering prayers he'll head to Tiruchurapalli.  

In this photograph, President's press secretary Venu Rajamony (right) is seen with a member of the accompanying media team, senior journalist R Rajagopalan.  

The temple recently shot into the limelight after the discovery of priceless treasures kept in its vaults.