India

New Delhi, June 18: In an official statement, former President A P J Abdul Kalam has said he will not contest the presidential election 2012 to be held on July 19. The former President said he was aware of the developments in the run-up to the elections but had never aspired for a second term as President. Kalam also conveyed the same to senior BJP leader L K Advani a short while ago, PTI reported

New York, June 18: Internet giant Google has reported a sharp rise of 49% in online content censorship from India as it said the trend of blockage were increasing from governments round the world, more surprisingly from Western democracies. Google said it had received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world in the second half of last year to take down items such as YouTube

New Delhi, June 18: Congress appears to be considering giving a second term to Vice-president Hamid Ansari, who narrowly lost out to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in the race for UPA nomination for the Rashtrapati Bhawan. An indication to that effect came on Sunday, when Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said in a TV interview that the party leadership could continue Ansari as VP. To a question

Hyderabad, June 18: Virtually sounding a warning to the striking Air India pilots, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said the government is not waiting for the pilots to return to work but making plans to move ahead. Reminding the pilots and other employees that their survival was linked to Air India, he said that nobody is going to give anymore public money to the airline and "they will not

New Delhi, June 18: The Indian stock markets on Monday are expected to react positively to the Greece results and also domestic factors. The Reserve Bank of India will announce its mid-term credit policy review on Monday. Majority of bankers and economist polled by CNBC-TV18 say that the RBI will cut repo rate and reverse repo rate by 25 basis points. This means home loans could become cheaper

Kolkata, June 18: A day after supporting APJ Abdul Kalam as the presidential candidate on Facebook, Mamata Banerjee on Sunday raised her voice against "corruption and back-room dealings" on the social networking site. Her latest post on Facebook hinted that the last two days' hectic political activities over presidential poll had something to do with "money, power and scams". The Trinamool

New Delhi, June 17: Indians’ money in Swiss banks may have risen for the first time in five years, but they account for a meagre 0.14 per cent of total foreign wealth deposited there — putting India at 55th place globally for such funds. The total overseas funds in Switzerland’s banking system stood at 1.53 trillion Swiss francs (about Rs. 90 trillion) at the end of 2011, which included 2.18

Bangalore, June 17: It is celebration time for the State Assembly that turns 60 on Monday. The Assembly Hall will be the venue for a special function organised to mark the historic event. There are not many surviving members of the Assembly, who can give a peek into the initial days of the Assembly - only five of them are alive and they will go down memory lane at the function, where they will be

New Delhi, Jun 17: Strong reservations from key ally JD-U over pitting a candidate against UPA nominee Pranab Mukherjee today forced the NDA to defer its decision on the Presidential election. At a two-hour inconclusive meeting of the NDA, the JD-U is believed to have disavoured a fight against Mukherjee because of his stature but BJP is said to have been keen on backing former Speaker P A Sangma

New Delhi, June 17: Division in the NDA on the issue of Presidential candidate came to the fore with Shiv Sena today skipping the key meeting of alliance leaders here. "Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackerey will take a decision on the issue," said party leader Sanjay Raut, when asked about speculation that the Sena was against fielding any candidate against Pranab Mukherjee, UPAs Presidential nominee