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India has blocked the release of Kaum De Heere (Diamonds Of The Community), a movie about the assassination of former PM Indira Gandhi, after complaints it glorified her killers.
Intelligence agencies had warned of potential violence if the movie is released.
Kaum De Heere had been scheduled for release on Friday, August 22.
The movie tells the story of Indira Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards who shot her dead apparently to avenge her decision to send troops in a deadly raid on the Golden Temple.
Sikhs say thousands were murdered when the army entered Sikhism’s holiest shrine in Amritsar to flush out militants.
Kaum De Heere had been scheduled for release on August 22
Indira Gandhi’s assassination triggered an outburst of communal violence targeted at Sikhs and more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed in attacks across India.
India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) decided to halt the release “because of the law and order situation that might result from the showing of the film”, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.
Kaum De Heere‘s producer Ravinder Ravi has defended his film vociferously, but has not yet responded to the latest decision.
In Punjab the Congress Party – which Indira Gandhi led – threatened to carry out protests if the film was released and the party’s youth wing also wrote to PM Narendra Modi asking for the film to be banned, saying it presented her assassins as heroes.
Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, her two bodyguards, are the main focus of the movie, which is what has given rise to such anger.
Beant Singh was killed by police shortly after the murder while Satwant Singh was later hanged.
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Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan sparked controversy after dancing on stage with a woman officer at a police gala in West Bengal state.
Opposition politicians criticized the performance, saying that allowing the officer to dance in uniform undermined respect for the police.
West Bengal’s leader Mamata Banerjee, who attended the event, was also targeted for allowing it to take place.
Shah Rukh Khan sparked controversy after dancing on stage with a woman officer at a police gala in West Bengal state
The dance took place at an annual state police cultural extravaganza on Saturday. Shah Rukh Khan, one of India’s most popular movie stars, was recently declared brand ambassador for West Bengal by Mamata Banerjee.
The president of the opposition Congress Party in the state, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, accused Mamata Banerjee of defying India’s constitution by allowing the officer to dance in uniform.
“The constitution doesn’t allow any person to dance like that in uniform. It’s a shame that the sanctity of police uniform was allowed to be violated. By allowing the officer to dance like that, she [Mamata Banerjee] violated the constitution of India,” he is quoted as saying.
Media reports also quoted the former city Police Commissioner Nirupam Som as saying: “During my tenure, I would not have allowed any officer to dance like that.”
However, some commentators on social media dismissed the tone of the row as “humorless”.
Indian rescue teams are working to locate survivors of a landslide that has claimed at least 23 lives and buried up to 200 people near the city of Pune in Maharashtra state.
Ten people have been rescued from the wreckage in Malin village.
Teams worked through the night but rain was hampering efforts to search for scores of people presumed trapped under the mud and debris.
The landslide hit the village early on Wednesday while people were sleeping.
Landslides are common in some parts of India during the monsoon, which runs from June to September.
The landslide has claimed at least 23 lives and buried up to 200 people near the city of Pune in Maharashtra state
A large part of a nearby hill collapsed on Malin, and its population of 150 to 200 tribal people were covered with tonnes of loose earth, mud and rocks.
“Everything on the mountain came down,” said Suresh Jadhav, a district official, describing how a cascade of mud, rocks and uprooted trees swamped the area.
Rescue operations were disrupted on Thursday morning after “very heavy rainfall” in the area, Tripti Parule, a spokesperson for India’s National Disaster Response Force said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan told the Press Trust of India news agency that more than 160 people were believed to be trapped in 44 houses buried under the rubble.
The Indian Express newspaper reported that a 25-year-old woman and her six-month-old baby were among the 10 people who had been rescued from the site.
“The woman and her baby were trapped in their house under the thatched roof… The mother was tightly holding the baby in her arms,” Baban Kokane, the driver of the rescue vehicle, told the newspaper.
“We found them while removing the mud with the earth mover. Their house was wrapped in a thick layer of mud.”
PM Narendra Modi described the loss of lives in the landslide as “saddening”. Home Minister Rajnath Singh is travelling to Pune on Thursday to assess the situation.
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A massive landslide buried a remote village in western India on July 30, killing at least 17 people, officials said.
The landslide buried some 40 houses and trapped about 150 people in Malin village, near the city of Pune in Maharashtra, officials say.
Teams of emergency workers have so far rescued six people.
The landslide buried some 40 houses and trapped about 150 people in Malin village
Rescuers trying to reach survivors caught under the debris are being hampered by bad weather.
The landslide hit the village early in the morning while people were sleeping.
The whole village except its school has been washed away or buried.
Landslides are common in some parts of India during the monsoon rains, which run from June to September.
An official from India’s National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) said hilly terrain was making rescue work difficult.
PM Narendra Modi described the loss of lives in the landslide as “saddening”. Narendra Modi said Home Minister Rajnath Singh would travel to Pune to assess the situation.
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The United States violated global trade rules when it imposed tariffs on products from China and India, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has found.
In response to a 2012 complaint, the WTO said the US improperly imposed tariffs on Chinese steel and solar panels.
The WTO said the US improperly imposed tariffs on Chinese steel and solar panels
In a separate ruling, it said the US must change the way it imposes tariffs on India steel products.
The US is embroiled in several trade spats with China and India.
“China urges the United States to respect the WTO rulings and correct its wrongdoings of abusively using trade remedy measures, and to ensure an environment of fair competition for Chinese enterprises,” said China’s foreign trade ministry in a statement.
However, the WTO did not agree with all of the complaints filed by India and China.
The US – which has argued it imposed the tariffs to combat artificially low prices on products from India and China’s state-subsidized industries – has the right to appeal the ruling.
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Carrefour is shutting its business in India less than four years after it opened its first store in the country.
One of the world’s largest retail chains, Carrefour currently operates five cash and carry wholesale stores in India.
The French retailer has been exiting underperforming markets, including Singapore, Malaysia and Greece, under chief executive Georges Plassat’s three-year revival plan.
It has said it wants to focus on key markets in Europe, China and Brazil.
Carrefour is shutting its business in India less than four years after it opened its first store in the country
India opened up its multi-brand retail sector to foreign companies in 2012.
But it has put pre-conditions, including those on local sourcing and infrastructure investment, and has also left the final decision on whether to allow foreign companies to open stores to individual state governments.
Many analysts have said the pre-conditions have deterred foreign companies from entering the sector.
So far, only one company – the UK’s Tesco – has announced plans to open stores in the country.
The decision to open up the sector to foreign firms also faced political opposition at the time.
The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) – which has recently formed a new government in India – had opposed the move arguing that the arrival of big name supermarkets may hurt the small retailers in the country.
A four-storey building collapsed in India’s capital Delhi on Saturday, killing 10 people, including five children.
Just hours later, a 12-storey building under construction toppled in Chennai in heavy rain, leaving six people dead.
A four-storey building collapsed in Delhi, killing 10 people
India has recently seen frequent building collapses, blamed on lax safety and substandard materials.
Rescue teams with cutters and shovels are continuing to search for survivors in the rubble in Chennai, in the southern Tamil Nadu state.
A police investigation has also been launched.
In January, at least 14 people died when a building under construction came crashing down in the western state of Goa.
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A pipeline carrying gas exploded in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh killing at least 14 people, a senior minister has said.
Flames could be seen erupting from a pipeline of the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) in East Godavari district early on Friday.
At least 10 people were injured. It is not clear what caused the blast.
Flames could be seen erupting from a pipeline of the Gas Authority of India Limited in East Godavari district (photo TV9)
GAIL is India’s largest state-owned natural gas processing and distribution company.
The company chairman BC Tripathi told the Press Trust of India that the fire occurred in an 18-inch pipeline of the company near a refinery run by the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Commission in Nagaram village.
“The reasons for the accident are not known yet. We are currently focused on rescue and relief operations,” he said.
Neetu Kumari Prasad, a senior official of the East Godavari district, said the fire, which has also gutted scores of houses, had been brought under control and the death toll could rise.
GAIL operates a 6,840-mile natural gas pipeline network and seven gas processing units across India. The company is also involved in petrochemicals, exploration, city gas distribution and wind and solar power.
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Five suspects are now arrested in India in connection with the gang rape and murder of two teenage cousins.
Three suspected attackers have been detained, along with two policemen accused of dereliction of duty and criminal conspiracy.
The girls, who belonged to a low caste, were found hanged from a tree in Uttar Pradesh state earlier in the week.
Alleged police inaction has sparked outrage.
The father of one victim said he was ridiculed by police when he sought help in finding his missing daughter.
The government has pledged to set up a fast-track court to deal with the case.
Five suspects are now arrested in India in connection with the gang rape and murder of two teenage cousins (photo Reuters)
Meanwhile, reports have emerged that two more gang rapes of minors occurred in Uttar Pradesh, in northern India, this week.
The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh mocked female journalists when asked about the rising number of rape cases at a news briefing.
“You are safe, why are you bothered?” Akhilesh Yadav said.
“No other state has the kind of police control room we have here. If there is any incident, we will take action.”
Police say they are now calling off their search for suspects over the attack.
Among those arrested are two officers, who have also been sacked over claims they refused to help look for the girls.
Senior police official Atul Saxena earlier announced there would be a “thorough investigation” into the allegations of caste discrimination by police.
Divisions between India’s castes run deep, and violence is often used by upper castes to instill fear in lower castes, correspondents say.
Although both the victim and the accused in the latest case belonged to a group known as “Other Backward Classes”, the victims were lower in that hierarchy.
The girls, two cousins aged 14 and 16, went missing in Badaun district on Tuesday night. They had apparently gone out to relieve themselves as they had no toilet at home.
Their bodies were discovered the following day. A post-mortem examination confirmed multiple assaults and death due to hanging.
The victims’ families say it took police more than 12 hours to respond to reports they were missing.
Campaigners have highlighted the lack of sanitation in rural areas as being a risk to women’s security as well as their health, as they are often attacked when having to go out to use the toilet, particularly at night.
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Two Indian police officers have been sacked for refusing to help search for two missing girls who were later found gang-raped and hanged, officials say.
They were also charged with criminal conspiracy, police said, adding that three people had been arrested so far.
The government has pledged to set up a fast-track court to prosecute the crime, which took place earlier this week in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
Alleged police inaction sparked outrage in the teenagers’ village.
The father of one victim said he was ridiculed by police when he sought help in finding his missing daughter.
Two Indian police officers have been sacked for refusing to help search for two missing girls who were later found hanged
He said that when policemen found out he was from a lower caste, they “refused to look for my girl”.
Authorities said on Friday that they were still looking for two other suspects.
Senior police official Atul Saxena earlier announced there would be a “thorough investigation” into the allegations of caste discrimination by police.
Divisions between India’s castes run deep, and violence is often used by upper castes to instill fear in lower castes, correspondents say.
Although both the victim and the accused belonged to a caste grouping known as “Other Backward Classes”, the victims were lower in that hierarchy.
The girls, two cousins aged 14 and 16, went missing in Badaun district on Tuesday night. They had apparently gone out to relieve themselves as they had no toilet at home.
Their bodies were discovered the following day. A post-mortem examination confirmed multiple assaults and death due to hanging.
Campaigners have highlighted the lack of sanitation in rural areas as being a risk to women’s security as well as their health, as they are often attacked when having to go out to use the toilet, particularly at night.
Some women’s groups argue that the low conviction rate for rape should be challenged with more effective policing rather than stiffer sentences.
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A surgeon treating an Indian businessman in Delhi has recovered 12 bars of gold from his stomach.
The 63-year-old man was admitted to hospital after complaining of vomiting and difficulty defecating.
He told his doctor that he had swallowed a bottle cap in anger, after a fight with his wife.
But when surgeons operated they found gold bars weighing nearly 400g (14oz) in his stomach instead of a bottle cap.
Police and customs authorities had questioned the businessman and confiscated the gold.
Indians traditionally hoard gold in the belief it will bring financial security (photo Reuters)
India, the world’s largest consumer of gold, has seen a record rise in smuggling after a rise in duty on imports of metal to curb the current account deficit.
Dr. CS Ramachandran, a senior surgeon at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said he had never seen a “case like this in my life”.
“This is the first time I have recovered gold from the stomach of a patient. I remember having taken out a bladder stone weighing 1kg from a patient. But finding gold in a patient’s stomach was something unbelievable,” he said.
“It was a tedious three-hour-long operation. He is an old patient and we had to be careful. We found 12 gold bars lying in a stack in his stomach.”
The businessman, who had undergone four stomach surgeries in the past and is a diabetic, was admitted to the hospital earlier this month, with symptoms of “acute intestinal obstruction”, Dr. CS Ramachandran added.
Last year India’s government hiked the import duty on gold three times to curb demand for the precious metal.
Gold imports, which had peaked at 162,000kg in May 2013, came down to 19,300kg in November after the hike.
Indian government has put on hold all deals with Rolls-Royce until it completes an investigation into bribery allegations against the company, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.
A federal agency is probing allegations that Rolls-Royce paid bribes for supply of aircraft engines.
Rolls-Royce said it would “cooperate fully” with Indian authorities.
The company is the world’s second biggest manufacturer of aircraft engines.
India’s defense ministry had put on hold all “existing and future” contracts with Rolls-Royce pending the results of an investigation by the country’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the purchase of jet fighter engines in a deal worth $1.6 billion, PTI reported.
Indian government has put on hold all deals with Rolls-Royce until it completes an investigation into bribery allegations against the company
The Rolls-Royce engines were supplied to the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) between 2007 and 2011, reports said.
“There was an internal vigilance report [by HAL] that suggested there were discrepancies in the deal. The CBI will look into that,” the AFP news agency quoted a defense official as saying.
A Rolls-Royce spokesman said the company would cooperate with the inquiry.
“We have repeatedly made clear that we will not tolerate misconduct of any sort,” PTI quoted the spokesman as saying.
Rolls-Royce said last year that the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was investigating allegations of possible bribery in China and Indonesia.
Last month, two people were arrested in London as part of an SFO investigation into the firm’s activities in Asia.
The office said at the end of last year it had opened a formal investigation into the engine maker about bribery and corruption in overseas markets.
The Rolls-Royce probe is the latest controversy to hit India’s defense purchases.
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Subrata Roy – the chairman of Sahara, one of India’s biggest businesses – has been arrested after he surrendered to the police.
The Supreme Court had ordered the arrest of Subrata Roy on Wednesday after he failed to appear before judges in a case of fraud.
Two Sahara firms are accused of raising 240 billion rupees ($3.9 billion) through bonds that were found to be illegal.
Market regulators say Subrata Roy failed to refund the money to millions of investors despite a court order.
He is expected to remain in custody until March 4 as the Supreme Court refused to take up his bail petition on Friday, saying it was “not urgent”.
“Mr. Roy willfully submitted himself before [the northern city of] Lucknow police. He is co-operating with all authorities,” his son, Seemanto Roy, told a press conference in Delhi.
Senior police official Habibul Hasan in Lucknow said the businessman would be produced before the magistrate soon.
The Supreme Court had ordered the arrest of Subrata Roy on Wednesday after he failed to appear before judges in a case of fraud
Earlier on Friday, Subrata Roy issued a statement saying he was not “absconding” from arrest after police in Lucknow said they had raided his house on Thursday, but failed to find him.
Subrata Roy said he was indeed in Lucknow but had stepped out to consult doctors about his ailing mother.
On Wednesday, angry judges ordered the businessman’s arrest after his lawyer said the Sahara chief had been unable to appear in court since his 92-year-old mother was very unwell.
Subrata Roy and his rags-to-riches life story is a household name in India.
Sahara group, worth 682 billion rupees ($11 billion), has businesses ranging from finance, housing, manufacturing, aviation and the media. It also has interests overseas – it owns New York’s landmark Plaza Hotel and London’s iconic Grosvenor House.
Subrata Roy’s group also sponsors the Indian hockey team and owns a stake in Formula One racing team, Force India.
With more than 1.1 million workers, Sahara is India’s biggest private sector employer.
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Indian pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy has suspended shipments of ingredients from two of its plants to probe their testing processes.
The move at Ranbaxy’s Toansa and Dewas plants, in India, follows a US ban on shipments from the two facilities.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said they fell short of its “good manufacturing practices”.
Ranbaxy said it had temporarily halted shipments to examine manufacturing “processes and controls”.
The ban has already hit Ranbaxy’s biggest market, but it’s thought the suspension will also hit supplies to Europe and India.
It follows a string of bans on imports of Ranbaxy drugs imposed by US regulators, covering four of its facilities.
Ranbaxy has suspended shipments of ingredients from two of its plants to probe their testing processes
An inspection of its Toansa plant led to an FDA ban in January.
Inspectors found products that had failed analytical tests being retested to produce acceptable findings.
The drugs which had failed testing were not reported or investigated by the company, the FDA said.
That ban followed others at two plants in 2008, including Dewas, and another in September 2013.
The plants under scrutiny produce ingredients for drugs used in oncology, dermatology, and gastrointestinal and cardiovascular medicine.
Ranbaxy, a member of the Daiichi Sankyo Group, now cannot export drugs to the US until it changes its manufacturing processes.
Company shares fell 2.7% in early trading on Tuesday, but later recovered, and rose nearly 1%.
Ranbaxy’s stock has fallen 20% since mid-September.
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India has announced polio eradication after three years since its last reported case, a landmark in the global battle against the disease.
It is seen as confirmation of one of India’s biggest public health successes, achieved through a massive and sustained immunization program.
India’s health minister hailed it as a “monumental milestone”.
In 2012 the World Health Organization (WHO) removed India from the list of polio-endemic countries. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria remain on it.
The list refers to countries in which the virus is circulating freely and the transmission of the infectious disease has not been stopped.
Despite India’s success, health experts fear a resurgence of polio in other parts of the world.
“This monumental milestone was possible due to unwavering political will at the highest level, commitment of adequate financial resources, technological innovation … and the tireless efforts of millions of workers including more than 23 lakh (2.3 million) vaccinators,” Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters.
India is marking three years since its last reported polio case
The WHO is expected to formally certify India’s polio-free status next month after testing its last samples.
“India has now set other important public health goals as a result of the confidence that the country has got from the successful eradication of polio,” the WHO’s Hamid Jafari told AFP news agency, citing a new goal to eradicate measles.
Only one case of polio was recorded in India in 2011, down from 741 in 2009. It came from the eastern state of West Bengal in 2011 when an 18-month-old girl was found to have contracted the disease.
After the eradication of smallpox in 1980, polio is the second disease in India that has been eliminated through immunization.
Nearly 2.3 million volunteers vaccinate some 170 million children under five years of age in India during every round of immunization.
Polio is capable of causing crippling disability or death within hours. It plagued societies in ancient times – and was present in more than 100 countries even in the 1980s, when it left 350,000 people paralyzed each year.
Global cases have decreased since then as part of a mass eradication program – to 372 in 2013.
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Indian athletes participating at next month’s Winter Games in Sochi will compete under the Olympic flag, not their national flag.
The three Indians who qualified for the Sochi Games will compete as “independent” athletes, rather than represent their country, after India’s Olympic body failed to schedule elections before the start of the Olympics on February 7.
The Indian Olympic Association was suspended by the IOC in December 2012 for electing tainted officials, notably secretary-general Lalit Bhanot, who spent more than 10 months in jail on corruption charges related to the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
The IOC said last month it would lift the suspension once new elections are held. The Indians have set their general assembly for February 9, two days after the opening of the Sochi Olympics.
“Following the executive board decision in December, the IOC is considering all necessary arrangements for the Indian athletes who have qualified for the Sochi Games to take part as Independent Olympic Participants under the Olympic flag,” the IOC said in a statement on Thursday.
Indian athletes participating at next month’s Winter Games in Sochi will compete under the Olympic flag
The trio includes Shiva Kesavan, a 32-year-old luger who will be appearing in his fifth Winter Games.
Shiva Kesavan told Indian media that not being able to compete under the national flag was “shameful and pathetic”.
“It is a sad and embarrassing situation that Indian sport has been put in,” he said.
“People around the world know about the failure of our systems and about corruption and bad governance in sports.”
Under pressure from the IOC, the Indian body amended its constitution last month to ban corruption-tainted officials from running for election. Had India not complied, it would have become the first country expelled from the Olympics since South Africa was kicked out more than 40 years ago.
The IOC has made provisions for athletes to compete under the Olympic flag at previous games.
Athletes from the former Netherlands Antilles and marathon runner Guor Marial of South Sudan competed as independents at the 2012 London Olympics. Athletes from East Timor marched under the Olympic flag at the 2000 Sydney Games.
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Indian deputy consul general in New York, Devyani Khobragade, whose arrest in the US sparked protests from India has been formally indicted by a grand jury.
However, prosecutors said that Devyani Khobragade, 39, had also been granted immunity and that US officials had asked her to leave the country.
Prosecutors initially said Devyani Khobragade had already left but were later told by her lawyer that she was still in the US.
Devyani Khobragade was detained on charges of visa fraud and of underpaying her housekeeper in New York last month.
India had demanded a US apology for her “humiliation”, which included a strip-search.
A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a statement that they “had been advised by the State Department that, pursuant to their request, Devyani Khobragade was to have left the United States this afternoon”.
Devyani Khobragade was detained on charges of visa fraud and of underpaying her housekeeper in New York
However, later in the day “Ms Khobragade’s lawyer advised that she has not, in fact, departed the US”.
Daniel Arshack, Devyani Khobragade’s lawyer, later confirmed this, saying that she was “at home with her children”.
Devyani Khobragade had been handcuffed and searched after a complaint from the maid, Sangeeta Richard.
She denied all the charges and in turn accused Sangeeta Richard of theft and attempted blackmail.
Delhi ordered a series of diplomatic reprisal measures against the US, and relations between the two countries have been strained over the case.
Security barricades around the American embassy in Delhi were removed and a visiting US delegation was snubbed by senior Indian politicians and officials.
On Wednesday, the US embassy in Delhi was ordered to stop “commercial activities on its premises”. India also said that embassy cars could be penalized for traffic offences.
The US embassy in Delhi has been told to shut down a club within its premises which includes a pool, restaurant and tennis court, NDTV news channel said.
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At least six people died after a building under construction has collapsed in the southern Indian state of Goa.
Dozens are feared trapped after the three-storey structure collapsed in the town of Canacona, according to Indian media reports.
Dozens are feared trapped after the three-storey structure collapsed in the town of Canacona
They say about 40 people had been on the site at the time of the incident. Rescuers are digging through the rubble in search of survivors.
There is no word on the cause of the collapse.
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India’s PM Manmohan Singh has announced that he will not stay in the post if his Congress party wins the next election, due in the summer.
Manmohan Singh, 81, has been India’s prime minister for almost a decade.
He said a Congress candidate would be named at the appropriate time, but that deputy leader Rahul Gandhi had “outstanding credentials”.
Manmohan Singh said it would be “disastrous for the country” if opposition leader Narendra Modi were elected PM.
Narendra Modi leads the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which recently beat Congress in assembly elections in four politically crucial states.
“Someone who presided over the massacre of innocent people should not be the prime minister,” Manmohan Singh said in uncharacteristically harsh words for Narendra Modi.
India’s PM Manmohan Singh has announced that he will not stay in the post if his Congress party wins the next election
Narendra Modi is the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat and has been accused of doing little to stop the 2002 anti-Muslim riots there which left more than 1,000 people dead. Narendra Modi has always denied any wrongdoing.
The BJP condemned Manmohan Singh’s remark, saying Narendra Modi had made Gujarat “a model of development for the country”.
For the past decade, Manmohan Singh has headed a coalition government led by Congress.
He has often been criticized for not speaking out more forcefully. Friday’s press conference was only the third such briefing during his whole term of office.
Manmohan Singh spoke on a wide range of issues, including the economy, inflation and corruption.
“In a few months’ time, after the general election, I will hand the baton over to a new prime minister,” Manmohan Singh said in his opening remarks.
Manmohan Singh has been one of India’s longest serving prime ministers and is widely regarded as the architect of India’s economic reforms program.
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According to new reports, the US is proceeding with the prosecution of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade after her arrest earlier this month caused a huge diplomatic row.
Devyani Khobragade’s detention on charges of visa fraud and underpaying her housekeeper led to outrage in India, where she is seen as being victimized.
She has denied all the charges and has been released on bail.
India has demanded an apology from the US over her alleged “humiliation”.
But Press Trust of India news agency quoted American sources in New York as saying that the US is gathering more evidence against Devyani Khobragade ahead of January 13, the deadline for her indictment.
The sources said there was no question of dropping the charges against Devyani Khobragade or apologizing for the arrest.
The US is proceeding with the prosecution of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade after her arrest earlier this month caused a huge diplomatic row
Devyani Khobragade, India’s deputy consul general in New York, was arrested in the city on December 12 on suspicion of visa fraud and making false statements, after being accused of paying her Indian maid below the US minimum wage.
She was handcuffed and strip-searched after a complaint from the maid, Sangeeta Richard.
Devyani Khobragade, who has been released on bail, denies all the charges and has in turn accused Sangeeta Richard of theft and attempted blackmail.
Delhi had already ordered a series of reprisals against the US.
Security barricades around the US embassy in Delhi were removed and a visiting US delegation was snubbed by senior Indian politicians and officials. India is also checking the tax status of Americans working at schools in the country.
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India is checking the tax statuses of Americans working at schools in the country, after the arrest this month of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York.
Devyani Khobragade – the deputy consul general of India in New York – was handcuffed and strip-searched while in custody.
Her detention on charges of visa fraud and underpayment of her housekeeper sparked outrage in India.
India would no longer turn a blind eye to tax violations by diplomats’ spouses taking up work in the country, Reuters cited an unnamed official as saying.
Delhi has also withdrawn some privileges enjoyed by American diplomats and their families in the country, added the official.
“Spouses and children have no more immunity. So if there is a parking offence or… something else happening in Bangalore etcetera, they would be held liable.”
While US Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed his “regret” over Devyani Khobragade’s arrest, the state department has said it will not drop charges, as requested by India.
Delhi has also demanded an apology from the US over the diplomat’s alleged “humiliation”.
Devyani Khobragade’s detention on charges of visa fraud and underpayment of her housekeeper sparked outrage in India
India’s deputy consul general in New York was arrested in the city on December 12 on suspicion of visa fraud and making false statements, after being accused of underpaying her Indian maid.
She was handcuffed and strip-searched after a complaint from the maid, Sangeeta Richard.
The diplomat, who has been released on bail, denies all the charges and has in turn accused Sangeeta Richard of theft and attempted blackmail.
Delhi had already ordered a series of reprisals against the US.
Security barricades around the US embassy in Delhi were removed and a visiting US delegation was snubbed by senior Indian politicians and officials.
According to documents filed in a New York court, Devyani Khobragade wrote on a visa application that the maid would be paid $4,500 a month.
But investigators said she instead paid only $573 per month – less than the New York state minimum wage.
If found guilty, Devyani Khobragade faces a maximum sentence of 10 years for visa fraud and five years for making false statements.
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India is facing expulsion from the Olympic movement unless the country complies with ethics rules, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach says.
The IOC suspended India last year because of government interference in its election process.
India has yet to agree to IOC demands to bar officials who have been charged with a criminal offence – an impasse which has led to the final ultimatum.
The Indian body is due to meet on Sunday to consider their position.
India is facing expulsion from the Olympic movement unless the country complies with ethics rules
“The [Olympic] charter is clear,” Thomas Bach told Associated Press.
“If the suspension leads to no solution, then further steps could be withdrawal of recognition.”
No country has been banned from the Olympics since the South Africa team was expelled between 1968 and 1988 during the apartheid era.
“We need to be strict and to make sure the rules of good governance are being applied,” Thomas Bach added.
India won two silver medals and four bronze at the London Olympics 2012.
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India is preparing to launch its first robotic spacecraft towards Mars.
The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) will lift off at 09:08 GMT atop an Indian-built rocket from Sriharikota.
If launch goes well, the spacecraft is set to travel for 300 days and should reach Mars orbit in September 2014.
India is preparing to launch its first robotic spacecraft towards Mars
If all goes well and the satellite orbits the Red Planet, India’s space agency will become the fourth in the world after those of the US, Russia and Europe to undertake a successful Mars mission.
A 56-hour countdown to the launch began on Sunday.
Some observers are viewing the launch of the MOM, also known by the informal name of Mangalyaan (Mars-craft), as the latest salvo in a burgeoning space race between the Asian powers of India, China, Japan, South Korea and others.
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India will impose a ban on the use of foreign cloud-based email services to send official communications, before the end of the year.
It would prevent civil servants using Gmail, Yahoo! or Outlook.com.
Instead they would be required to use a service provided by the country’s own National Informatics Centre (NIC).
The move follows the publication of leaks about US cyber-spying operations.
According to documents given to the Guardian and subsequently reported by The Hindu newspaper in June, 6.3 billion pieces of information were collected from India’s computer and telephone networks over the course of a month by the US NSA, making it the fifth most “intensively watched” country.
India’s communications and IT minister first announced his intention to restrict which email services officials could use in August.
He added that staff working outside the country should use virtual private networks and one-time passwords when accessing NIC servers to further protect themselves.
India will impose a ban on the use of foreign cloud-based email services to send official communications, before the end of the year
“It is imperative in view of the security concerns that exist in other countries,” Kapil Sibal said at the time.
One of the minister’s officials has now confirmed the plan is close to implementation.
“Our effort will be to operationalise the policy by mid or end-December,” said J Satyanarayana, secretary at the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, at a conference in Delhi.
India is not the only country implementing such measures.
Earlier this month Brazil’s president confirmed her country planned to set up its own secure, encrypted email service to “prevent possible espionage”.
The move would prevent the NSA and GCHQ (the UK Government Communications Headquarters) monitoring locally sent and received messages unless Brazilians allowed them access to their servers or if the emails were sent to an account belonging to a non-protected service.
President Dilma Rousseff, in a speech at the UN. described the suspected interception of Brazilian diplomats’ data as “a breach of international law”.
However, India’s ministers have been less vocal about the issue.
“This is not scrutiny and access to actual messages,” said India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid in July when questioned about the alleged surveillance of his country.
“It is only computer analysis of patterns of calls and emails that are being sent. It is not actually snooping specifically on content of anybody’s message or conversation.”
India is in the process of creating its own data intercept scheme called the Centralized Monitoring System.
Local telecoms operators have been told they must co-operate with the surveillance effort, which involves a variety of local security agencies.
Director Woody Allen has decided to stop his latest film Blue Jasmine from being screened in India after learning mandatory anti-tobacco adverts would be inserted into its smoking scenes.
Indian law requires health warnings to be shown on screen when characters smoke in films, while cinemas must play anti-smoking ads before every movie.
According to Reuters, Woody Allen refused to accommodate the ads during his film.
It had been due to open in around 30 cinemas at the weekend.
Blue Jasmine stars Cate Blanchett as a wealthy New York socialite who suffers a humiliating fall from grace after her husband is arrested for financial fraud.
Cate Blanchett’s critically acclaimed performance has seen her odds of winning an Oscar next year slashed to 1/4 from an initial 7/1 in August.
Woody Allen has decided to stop his latest film Blue Jasmine from being screened in India
The film features two smoking scenes that would have given cause for the on-screen disclaimers – typically scrolling text warning viewers of the dangers of tobacco use.
A publicist for Woody Allen told Reuters: “Due to content in the film, it cannot be shown in India in its intended manner. Therefore, the film is not scheduled to play there.”
The film’s Indian distributor, PVR films, told DNA newspaper the director had overall creative control over the film.
“He wasn’t comfortable with the disclaimer that we are required to run when some smoking scene is shown in films,” Deepak Sharma said.
“He feels that when the scroll comes, attention goes to it rather than the scene. We had to abide by the law and we don’t have control over the film.”
India’s film censor board regularly requires changes to films and while some directors allow the alterations, others have refused.
Many, including Martin Scorsese and David Lynch, argue changes to their films – including changing the aspect ratio in which some movies are shot – are unacceptable because they corrupt the artist’s vision.
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