India

New Delhi, May 4: The consultation process over candidates for the presidential election made some headway on Thursday. The Congress is understood to have informed its UPA partners that Vice-President Hamid Ansari was its preferred choice for the coveted post, followed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Senior party sources indicated that Congress would support the candidature of Ansari and

London, May 4: After nearly two decades, the law has finally caught up with ‘Tiger' Hanif, an alleged associate of the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. A British court has ordered his extradition to India, where he is wanted for his role in two terror attacks in Gujarat. Hanif, 51, whose full name is Mohammed Hanif Umerji Patel, has been charged with involvement in a grenade attack in a crowded

New Delhi, May 4: The Congress's dilemma over whether to sponsor Pranab Mukherjee in the race for Rashtrapati Bhavan was out in the open on Thursday when a party spokesperson hurriedly withdrew her comment about the veteran finance minister's indispensability for the government. The spokesperson, Renuka Chaudhary, kicked up a virtual storm when she told reporters, "It will never be easy to leave

New Delhi, May 3: About 60 per cent of India's rural population lives on less than Rs 35 a day and nearly as many in cities live on Rs 66 a day, reveals a government survey on income and expenditure. "In terms of average per capita daily expenditure, it comes out to be about Rs 35 in rural and Rs 66 in urban India. About 60 per cent of the population live with these expenditures or less in rural

Raipur, May 3: Bringing an end to the hostage crisis, Maoists today released Sukma collector Alex Paul Menon. He was handed over to the mediators after 12 days of captivity. "B D Sharma and Professor G Hargopal, who represented the Maoists in the talks with the Chhattisgarh Government for the 32-year-old IAS officer's release, left for Tadmetla this morning to receive Menon, who was kidnapped on

New Delhi, May 3: The Delhi serial blasts (September 13, 2008) trial has taken a curious turn with discrepancies showing up in the phone records of Atif Ameen, the terror accused gunned down in the shootout at Batla House. Among other things, records produced in the court of Additional Sessions Judge Narinder Kumar showed the following: call logs of conversations between Ameen and another

New Delhi, May 3: Apparently bowing to the American pressure India has dropped Iran from the urea procurement list just ahead of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to the country, sources told Headlines Today on Tuesday. Iran was the source of about 35 per cent of urea imports to India for the last two years. The State Trading Corporation (STC), a key government agency for procurement

New Delhi, May 3: After social activist Anna Hazare and his team, Yoga guru Baba Ramdev has stoked a controversy calling MPs “dacoits and murderers,” evoking strong condemnation from parliamentarians who asserted that such “insults” are unacceptable. Addressing the media while launching his month-long yatra in Chhattisgarh's Durg on Tuesday, Baba Ramdev said there were good people among the

New Delhi, May 3: In a conditional relief to Italy, whose merchant ship was seized following the shooting to death of two Kerala fishermen by two marines on board, the Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the vessel to leave India, along with the crew and the remaining marines. But a Bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and H.L. Gokhale directed them to make themselves available whenever they were required

New DelhI, May 3: A Congress nominee, either finance minister Pranab Mukherjee or Vice-President Hamid Ansari, seems set to be elected President, with all indications suggesting that the BJP-led opposition may not be able to put up a credible fight in the polls to determine who should replace Pratibha Patil. Although BJP scrambled to contain the damage from the "unilateral" declaration to oppose