Annual Allocation for North Bengal Board Hiked

May 26 , 2011

Kolkata : Annual The West Bengal government has decided to enhance the annual allocation of the North Bengal Development Board to Rs.200 crore from the present Rs.60 crore, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said here Wednesday.
"Allocation of Rs.60 crore for the six districts in North Bengal was too meagre. So we have increased it by over three times," Banerjee told mediapersons here after a cabinet meeting.
She said her government has also decided to set up a chief minister's secretariat in north Bengal.
Banerjee appealed to Indian Adminsitrative Service and Indian Police Service officers who have left the state in recent years to return to West Bengal.
"Whoever is willing, we will bring them back," she said.
She said a delegation of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha, which is fighting for the creation of a Gorkhaland state in north Bengal, will meet her at the state secretariat Thursday.

Some Republicans Press for End to Afghan War After Bin Laden's Death Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/24/republicans-press-end-afghan-war-bin-ladens-death/#ixzz1NHv0DnY2

May 26 , 2011

FoxNews : After the killing of Usama bin Laden, liberal Democrats aren't the only ones calling for an end to the 10-year conflict in Afghanistan.

Some Republican lawmakers are questioning why the U.S. continues to operate in Afghanistan, which they now call a lost cause of a nation. Some cite a treasure trove of intelligence collected from bin Laden's suburban hideout in Pakistan, which suggests terrorists are looking for big bombs and ways to hit U.S. interests.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Peter Welch, D-Vt., are offering an amendment to a Defense Department spending bill that would end in the war in Afghanistan by forcing U.S. combat troops to withdraw, leaving only forces directly involved in counterterrorism operations. The amendment would require the secretary of defense to submit a withdrawal plan to Congress within 60 days of enactment.

"It is long past time to bring the war in Afghanistan to an end," the lawmakers said in a joint statement. "After 10 costly years, it is crystal clear that the U.S. strategy of nation building in a corrupt country with a minimal Al Qaeda presence is not working."

"Terrorism is a decentralized threat to America's national security, and our counterterrorism strategies should reflect that reality," they added. "The surgical mission that located and killed Usama bin Laden should be the model for America's anti-terrorism policy worldwide."

The Pentagon declined to comment on the calls from lawmakers, deferring to the White House.

"We serve at the pleasure of the White House," Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Beth Robbins told FoxNews.com. "We don't make policy. We carry out policy."

The White House has insisted that bin Laden's death will not change President Obama's plan to begin a "modest" withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan beginning in July that will continue until all combat forces are gone by 2014. 

The White House is reportedly considering withdrawing as many as 10,000 troops by the end of this year -- about 10 percent of the 100,000 troops there now. The White House has warned that a precipitous drawdown could undermine U.S. gains in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban has traditionally held home court advantage.

Obama, who is in London as part of a weeklong trip to Europe, will speak Wednesday in Westminster Hall, addressing both houses of the British Parliament. White House officials said Tuesday that Obama's speech will highlight the alliance between the U.S. and Britain "turning a corner" after a difficult decade with combat missions ending in Iraq, Al Qaeda being weakened, bin Laden being killed and a security transition set to begin in Afghanistan.

"In that context, it's a new world," White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said.  

But that hasn't deterred some Republicans from pressing the White House to shift strategies in Afghanistan. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has seized on bin Laden's death to revive his longtime effort to end the war. Paul, who is running for president, also wants to substantially reduce the U.S. military presence around the world.

Reps. Walter Jones of North Carolina and Jimmy Duncan of Tennessee have also called for a bigger withdrawal than the White House plans, saying they were "disappointed" by reports of the proposed 10,000 troops coming home this year.

"With the recent death of bin Laden, it was proven that it does not take 100,000 troops to fight the war on terror," they said in a joint statement. "Bringing home such a limited number of troops continues to prolong this war, which will taken another 10 years for a complete withdrawal at this current rate." 

Chaffetz and Welch sent Obama a letter calling for him to abandon the nation-building strategy in Afghanistan to focus on missions like the one that killed bin Laden.

"After fighting the longest war in the history of the United States of America, it's time to redeploy our resources to address our most pressing threats," they wrote. "It's time to bring the formal war in Afghanistan to an end as we adapt to the changing demands of a different kind of war."

A group of three Democrats and three Republicans also signed the letter.

At a hearing on Afghanistan earlier this month, Sen. Dick Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, questioned whether the war was worth the cost in the wake of bin Laden's death.

"With Al Qaeda largely displaced from the country, but franchised in other locations, Afghanistan does not carry a strategic value that justifies 100,000 American troops and a $100 billion per year cost, especially given current fiscal restraints."

Lugar also warned in an opinion article published in the Washington Times that Al Qaeda may try to avenge bin Laden's death through nuclear or chemical weapons. He called for the U.S. to continue a program seeking to eliminate weapons of mass destruction in countries where they are discovered and to step up efforts to control biological weapons and pathogens, especially in Africa.

"Our military and intelligence personnel deserve high praise for killing bin Laden, but the fact that it took nearly 10 years illustrates the difficulty in containing and capturing individual terrorists," he wrote. "That makes it all the more important that we do everything we can to deprive terrorists of access to deadly materials that could be used to carry out a devastating attack in the United States."

Frank Gaffney, a critic of the president and the president of the Center for Security Policy, is opposed to pulling out -- even modestly in July.

"Afghanistan -- now no longer George Bush's war, but Barack Obama's -- is, if anything, in even worse shape," he said in a statement, accusing the administration of "negotiating the Afghans' surrender to the Taliban." 

"Again, the president's insistence that U.S. forces will begin coming out of theater this summer signals to friends and foes alike that we will not stay the course," he said. "The only question now is: How ignominious will be our defeat at the hands of those we routed after 9/11, and their Pakistani, Chinese, Iranian and Russian friends?"

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/24/republicans-press-end-afghan-war-bin-ladens-death/#ixzz1NHv9RMyN

US to withdraw troops from Pakistan

May 26 , 2011 

Washington : The US military has announced the withdrawal of a number of its troops from Pakistan.

The Pentagon said it had received a request from the Pakistani government to reduce its presence in the country.

The request came after a raid by US special forces killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in early May.

The US has more than 200 troops in Pakistan helping to train the army. But there are said to be intelligence and special forces operating there.

A spokesman at the Pentagon said that within the last two weeks Pakistan had asked the American military to reduce its footprint, and the Americans were doing so, pulling out some troops. The numbers are quite small.

It is not clear if any of the American intelligence and special operations forces that are said to be in Pakistan clandestinely are also being pulled out.

Volatile relations

The request would appear to be a sign of Pakistan's discontent at the manner in which the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was conducted without Islamabad's knowledge.

Relations between Washington and Islamabad are always complex and fragile but they are particularly volatile at the moment.

In Washington, suspicion is rife that some in Pakistan knew of Osama bin Laden's hiding place.

And there is grumbling about continued US military aid.

A trial underway in Chicago may shed light on the relationship between Pakistani intelligence and violent extremist groups.

And to top it off, Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has just been to China, buying fighter jets and reaffirming a strategic alliance the US finds troubling.

PSLV-launched X-SAT starts beaming images

May 26 , 2011

SINGAPORE : Placed in precise orbit by India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV C-16, Singapore's first ‘locally built' experimental micro-satellite, X-SAT, has started transmitting images to a dedicated facility here.

The imagery data is being beamed to the 13m X-band antenna at the Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing, and Processing, according to the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) here. In collaboration with the city-state's foremost applied Research & Development organisation, DSO National Laboratories, the NTU had embarked on this project to catalyse academic interest in the extraterrestrial domain.

Nearly 10 hours after the PSLV C-16 hurled X-SAT into its planned orbit on April 20, the NTU's Research Techno Plaza succeeded in establishing contact with the satellite. And, about two weeks after the launch, the first set of imagery data was received in early May, the university said in a statement.

SYSTEMS NORMAL

In an earlier statement, the NTU said the telemetry received from the satellite showed that all its core systems were working normally. The solar panels were operating well after having been deployed as planned.

The 105-kg X-SAT, which has life span of three years, would orbit the earth at a space altitude of 800 km. With three payloads, the micro-satellite was designed to take photographs of the earth and enable the gauging of soil erosion and environmental changes.

IN-ORBIT TESTS

A series of in-orbit tests would be carried out in the next few months to keep the project on course. X-SAT is also programmed to monitor forest fires and oil pollution at sea.

Keywords: PSLV C-16, X-SAT

India, Africa call for end to Libya bombing

May 26 , 2011

ADDIS ABABA  : Amid growing regional and international concerns about the conflict in Libya, where NATO has intensified its bombing campaign in recent days, India joined Africa in calling for an immediate ceasefire and for a negotiated end to the violence there.

The Addis Ababa declaration issued here on Wednesday at the end of the Second Africa-India Forum Summit took note of the U.N. resolutions under which the NATO is using military force against Libya and stressed that “efforts to implement them should be within the spirit and letter of those resolutions.”

The declaration urges the parties in the conflict to strive for a political solution through peaceful means and dialogue. India and the 15 African governments including Libya, which took part in the summit, also expressed their support for the African Union High-Level Ad Hoc Committee initiative and the AU roadmap for the peaceful and consensual resolution of the conflict.

At a separate bilateral meeting with Libya's Foreign Minister, Abdal al Latti al Obedi, on the sidelines of the summit, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna regretted the NATO-led airstrikes and urged an immediate ceasefire in Libya, an end to the violence and any attack on civilians, a senior Indian official told The Hindu.

Mr. Krishna said this in response to Mr. al-Obedi's request for India to support an immediate ceasefire. The Indian Minister also urged the intensification of efforts to find a lasting, peaceful solution to the conflict.

With its earlier efforts at peacemaking having run aground in the face of the opposition of the Libyan rebels to any dialogue or ceasefire until Colonel Muammar Qadhafi left the country, the AU has now decided to put its political efforts into high gear. An extraordinary summit to discuss the crisis caused by the intensification of NATO's bombing campaign was held here on Wednesday evening, with several African heads of state flying into Addis Ababa to take part in the discussions.

The Africa-India summit declaration also dealt with a number of political issues, including piracy off the coast of Somalia, terrorism and U.N. reform. Specifically, the summit emphasised the need for countries to “exert utmost effort on U.N. Security Council reform during the current session of the U.N. General Assembly.”

In a separate document on a framework for enhanced cooperation between Africa and India, the two sides have envisaged a widening of the partnership to areas such as civil society and governance, science and technology, social development, health, culture, tourism, sports, infrastructure and media and communications.

It was also decided that the next Africa-India summit would be held in New Delhi in 2014.

Keywords: Africa-India Forum Summit, Libyan unrest, Qadhafi regime, NATO strike

High Court reserves order on Setalvad's plea

May 26 , 2011

AHMEDABAD : The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday reserved its order till May 27 on the plea of Teesta Setalvad, general secretary of the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), to quash the first information report (FIR) and summons issued against her in connection with the 2005 Lunawada mass grave-digging case.

Even as her advocate Kamini Jaiswal demanded quashing of the FIR on the ground that Ms. Setalvad was not even present at the site of digging, State government counsel Prakash Jani told vacation judge G.B. Shah that the Mumbai-based social activist was a “prime accused” and was not just a witness as was being made out.

He said Ms. Setalvad was named accused in the case on the basis of statements by five of her former associates who had opposed her anticipatory bail plea in a local court in the Panchamahals district earlier this year.

Ms. Jaiswal said Ms. Setalvad was not at all present at the digging site and claimed that the FIR and the summons against her were “motivated and mala fide” and were intended at stopping her from helping the 2002 communal riot victims in the court cases.

Mr Jani quoted from the report of the Sanitary Inspector of the Lunawada Municipality in which he had described the circumstances leading to the “official burial” of 28 bodies of riot victims on the banks of the Panam river outside the Lunawada town because the bodies were “unclaimed.”

Some people claiming to be “relatives” of those buried there, along with Rais Khan Pathan, the then field co-ordinator of the CJP, had dug up the mass graves on instructions from Ms. Setalvad on December 27, 2005, without permission, Mr. Jani told the court. Ms. Setalvad became an accused with the filing of the charge sheet on April 3 this year.

Ms. Setalvad was granted anticipatory bail by a local court on February 15, 2011, but it was opposed by her co-accused, including Mr. Rais Khan Pathan, Ghulambhai Kharadi and others, who testified before the magistrate that they had dug up the mass graves at her behest.

Mr. Jani said the charges against Ms. Setalvad included fabricating false evidence, causing disappearance of evidence, criminal conspiracy, hurting religious feelings, trespass into burial place and others. He also told the court that the FIR was culminated into a charge sheet only after the investigations were concluded and she was prima facie found guilty of the charges.

Keywords: 2005 Lunawada mass grave-digging case

Imphal civic poll concludes peacefully

May 26 , 2011

IMPHAL : The election for 26 posts of councillors and 53 members to the Imphal Municipal Council (IMC) concluded at 4 p.m. on Wednesday without any untoward incident.

One councillor and one member had been already declared elected unopposed. Election department officials said that there was 70 per cent polling with more women voters than men in an electorate of 1,62,264 voters.

92 CONTESTED

Ninety-two candidates had contested for the posts of 26 councillors while there were 218 candidates in the fray for the posts of 53 members.

CONGRESS CONTESTS ALL SEATS

The ruling Congress is the only party which contested all the seats. Its coalition partner — the Communist Party of India — fielded just four candidates.

The Nationalist Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party fielded 10 candidates each.

The Manipur People's Party, which is regarded as the main Opposition party in the State, did not field any candidate.

The Trinamool Congress, which had won the by-election to the Konthoujam constituency, put up six candidates.

Thirty-six independents contested for various posts.

Headley says he was trained in espionage by ISI

May 26 , 2011

CHICAGO : Mumbai attacks co-accused David Coleman Headley has testified that he received espionage training against India from Pakistan’s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

“ISI did provide me (espionage) training,” Headley told a Chicago court as he was grilled by the defence attorney Charles D Swift on the third day of the trial of Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Rana, another co-accused in the 26/11 attacks, in a Chicago court.

The statements formed part of the testimony of Headley, who has pleaded guilty.

These disclosures, which further cements India’s charges that elements of ISI were involved in the Mumbai attacks, is also corroborated by information given by federal prosecutors in the documents to the court, which were unsealed on Wednesday.

The ISI training to Headley was provided by Major Iqbal, who was his ISI handler, in a two-storey safe house in Lahore near the airport, the Mumbai terror suspect told judges during the course of questioning by Swift.

Headley told the court that when he met Major Iqbal in 2006, he expressed dissatisfaction at the military and espionage training that he had received from the LeT earlier.

Major Iqbal told him that the training received from LeT was “not very good” and was “very elementary”, so he decided to give instructions to him.

Headley told the defence attorney that this training in espionage against India was given to him in Lahore on the streets and a safe house near the airport.

It was a two-storey house in a residential neighbourhood and there was a small compound outside the house, Headley said when pressed by Swift during the closing hours on the third day of the trial.

Despite repeated questioning, Headley said that he did not know the full name of Major Iqbal, but was sure that he was from the ISI.

He was introduced as Major Iqbal to him.

Although Major Iqbal was never seen by Headley in military uniform, he came to meet him several times in a military jeep and his subordinates had military designations, Headley said.

Headley said he never went to the ISI headquarters and added that he was introduced to Major Iqbal by military personnel, a fact corroborated by the unsealed document.

In this unsealed document federal prosecutors said in 2006, Headley traveled to the FATA area with Pasha.

“During the trip, Headley and Pasha were stopped and questioned by Pakistani authorities. Headley was questioned by an individual who identified himself as Major Ali. He told Ali about his training with LeT, Ali then asked Headley for his contact information.

“Several days later, Headley was contacted by an individual who identified himself as Major Iqbal,” said the unsealed document.

“Over the next several years, as described in more detail below, Headley met with Major Iqbal and his associates many times. During these meetings, Headley was trained in various topics, including spotting and assessing people, recognizing Indian military insignia and movements, dead drops and pick up points, and clandestine photography,” the unsealed documents said.

When questioned by Swift, Headley told the court that both the ISI and Major Iqbal trained him for espionage against India. He was expected to go to India, make contacts.

The ISI and Major Iqbal were particularly motivated by the fact that he was US born and an American national, this would have concealed his real identity in India.

“They (ISI and Major Iqbal) wanted me to have a business so as to have the ability to have a long tern stay in India. In discussion with them I suggested it to take the help of Dr Rana’s (Tahawwur Rana) business to get this objective,” Headley said.

Keywords: Mumbai terror, 26/11 attacks, Chicago court trial, David Headley, Tahawwur Rana

2G scam: Morani's bail plea hearing in court today

May 26 , 2011

New Delhi:  The bail plea hearing of Cineyug promoter Karim Morani, an accused in the 2G spectrum allocation, will come up in a Special CBI court in New Delhi today.

Morani had earlier appeared in court on Wednesday after his anticipatory bail plea was dismissed a day before.

Morani had been seeking exemptions from court appearances citing medical grounds.On Monday too Morani came to court wearing a neck brace. His lawyers say he's undergone an angioplasty and has been in hospital for many days.

CBI, in its second charge sheet in 2G case, had alleged that Swan Telecom and Dynamix Realty Promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka channeled Rs. 200 crore to DMK family-run Kalaignar TV, through Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd and Morani's Cineyug Films Pvt Ltd.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/2g-scam-moranis-bail-plea-hearing-in-court-today-108234?cp

9-seater plane crashes in Faridabad residential colony; 10 killed

May 26 , 2011

New Delhi:  A nine-seater chartered aircraft with seven people on board crashed into a densely-populated residential colony in Faridabad on Wednesday night, killing ten people, including all seven on board.

Three of those killed in the accident were residents of the two-storey house in Parvatia Colony into which the plane crashed. All three were women - identified as the wife, daughter and daughter-in-law of the owner of the house. Ten people were said to be inside the house at the time of the crash. While the owner and his son escaped unharmed, four others were injured.

The plane crashed on the roof of a house and broke into two due to impact. While the body of the plane got stuck on the roof, the nose of the plane landed on the narrow street below. It also caught fire soon as it crashed.

The PC-12 single-engine aircraft was flying to the Capital from Patna, rushing a seriously-ill patient, Rahul Raj, for specialised medical treatment when the crash occurred at 10.50 pm, fifteen minutes after it lost contact with the Air Traffic Control at Delhi airport. 

Class 12 student Rahul was being airlifted from Jagdish Memorial hospital in Patna to Apollo Hospital in Delhi to be treated for jaundice and first stage of hepatitis. He was in coma and on ventilator.

Apart from Rahul, there were two crew members and two doctors on board. Also accompanying Rahul were his uncle and cousin brother. All seven on board were killed.

"Rahul was ill. We took him to a nursing home in Patna. The treatment was going on, he was kept in ICU but his condition was not improving. So we planned to take him to Delhi. A chartered plane came from Delhi to take him. There were doctors in the plane. When the plane was reaching Delhi, it was caught in gusty wind. That's when the plane crashed," Rahul Raj's grandfather told NDTV.

The plane was reportedly caught in bad weather and nosedived from a height of about 8,000 feet. With six aircraft in queue, the Air Traffic Control (ATC) had asked the plane to stop descent at 11,000 feet. 

According to an ATC official, "apart from the difficulty of operating a single-engine aircraft, doing so in heavy wind conditions can cause a disaster. In heavy wind conditions, the backdraft from the wind hitting the tail can make the aircraft unstable and cause it to nosedive".

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has initiated a probe into the matter. "We have appointed an Inspector Accident who will make the sketch of the area and take the investigation further," AK Sharan, Joint Director DGCA said.

The aircraft, registration number VT-ACF, was being operated by Air Charter Services India. The aircraft was manufactured in 2005. 

Engineer swallows documents after being caught red-handed

May 25 , 2011

Jaipur:  What do you do if you are a government official and you've been caught red-handed with incriminating documents? Well, eat them up. At least that's what an executive engineer working with the Public Works Department in Jaipur did.

Narendra Singhvi snatched and swallowed some documents which were being examined by officials of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) during a raid.

The stunned officers tried to prise open his mouth to retrieve the documents but in vain.

Singhvi managed to keep his mouth shut and subsequently swallowed the papers.    

During the struggle, the thumb of an inspector belonging to the ACB nearly got bitten off as he tried to get the paper out of Singhvi's mouth.

The documents in question carried details of illegal cash transactions by Singhvi.

The engineer's office was raided following complaints that he had been demanding bribes to clear bills.

Wife''s killer arrested in Delhi

May 25, 2011

Srinagar : A man, who was on the run after allegedly murdering his wife at his house here on May two, was arrested from the national capital today.

Mushtaq Ahmad Pandith, who allegedly stabbed his wife to death at his Kralpora house on the outskirts of Srinagar, was arrested from the New Delhi Railway Station, police said.

He had been sent to 14-day police custody,

Drunk CISF jawan opens fire, injures six

May 25 , 2011

Gandhinagar : Six people, including three women, were injured when a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) trooper started firing indiscriminately in an inebriated state at the Naroda Gam police lines in Ahmedabad around midnight, the police control room said here early Wednesday.

Identified as Balwinder Singh, the trooper climbed atop a building in the police lines and began firing from a pistol.

Condition of a woman, who was among the injured, is reported serious. She has been admitted to the Apollo hospital.

The drunk trooper, who did not bother to listen to any word of advice or attempt to pursuade him to give up, was ultimately shot in the leg and overpowered.

Two held for running IPL betting racket

May 25 , 2011

Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh)   :  Two people have been arrested here for accepting bets worth Rs.1.5 crore on matches of the Indian Premier League (IPL), police said Wednesday.

Jitendra Bhadauria and Dharmendra Singh, both in their mid-30s, were arrested late Tuesday from Nazeerabad area.

'The two used to operate from a small house in Nazeerabad. Preliminary investigations show the two also have links with betting rackets in Delhi,' police Inspector H.K. Rai told reporters in Kanpur, some 80 km from Lucknow.

'We have seized around Rs.6 lakh in cash from the duo's possession. Several mobile phones, CDs and a television set were also recovered,' he added.

Suicide bomb kills 5 at Pakistani police building

May 25 , 2011

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) : A suicide bomber in an explosives-laden pickup truck leveled a police building in northwest Pakistan Wednesday, killing five officers and wounding 30 other people in the latest attack to rattle the country since the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility and said the blast was to avenge the death of bin Laden. Already this month, the al-Qaida-allied group has claimed three other revenge attacks, including a bloody 18-hour siege of a naval base.

The target Wednesday in Peshawar appeared to be the police's criminal investigation department, but the building was in an army compound and several military facilities also are nearby, said regional police chief Liaquat Ali Khan. Counterterrorism police officers were stationed at the center, another officer said.

The Pakistani Taliban is violently opposed to the United States, but also is angry at the Pakistani state for cooperating with Washington since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The group has carried out scores of attacks on Pakistan's security establishment over the years.

Police officer Mohammad Zahid was in the basement when the bomb went off.

"I felt like the sky fell on me," Zahid said in hospital, where he was being treated for multiple injuries. "The explosion jammed the door of my room in the basement, but there was a small hole in the wall so I crawled through that."

Five officers died, and at least 30 people were wounded, police said.

Military forces sealed off much of the cantonment as machines were brought in to sift through the piles of rubble left at the site of what was once a multistory building.

Government leaders condemned the bombing.

"Our determination is much higher than before, and we will fight till the defeat of these terrorists," said Bashir Bilour, a senior official with the provincial government. He said at least 660 pounds (300 kilograms) of explosives were used.

Bin Laden was killed on May 2 by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs in the army town of Abbottabad in a house roughly a mile away from Pakistan's premier military academy.

Since the raid, U.S.-Pakistan relations have sunk to new lows. Pakistani leaders insist they had no idea the al-Qaida leader had been living, apparently for five years, in the large, three-story house in Abbottabad. And they are furious that the U.S. raided the house without telling them in advance.

The Taliban have taken responsibility for a twin suicide bombing at a paramilitary police training facility that killed around 90 people and a car bomb that slightly wounded two Americans in northwest Pakistan.

But the siege of the naval base in the southern port city of Karachi was one of the most audacious assaults in years and further rattled a military establishment already humiliated by the unilateral U.S. raid. The militants destroyed two U.S.-supplied surveillance aircraft while killing 10 people on the base. Four militants died in the fighting, officials said.

Associated Press writer Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khancontributed to this report.

24 of Bihar's Super 30 crack IIT-JEE this year

May 25 , 2011

Patna :  After the 100 percent success rate of the last three years, only 24 of 30 students of Super 30, Bihar's free coaching centre, have cracked the Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) this year.

'It is again a good news that this year, 24 out of the 30 students made it to the IIT-JEE. In the last three years, all 30 from Super 30 had qualified. This takes the total number of Super 30 students who have qualified for the IIT-JEE in the last nine years to 236,' the institute's founder and director Anand Kumar told IANS Wednesday.

He added that the changed pattern of the exam this year could be a reason why his entire batch could not bag the coveted IIT seats.

The successful candidates include the wards of a roadside vendor, mobile mechanic, private marginal farmer, a truck driver and a class four government employee.

'All of them have managed to successfully chase their IIT-JEE dreams at Super 30 with their commitment and hard work,' he said.

Super 30 helps economically backward students crack the IIT-JEE, and has received numerous national and international recognitions.

The Time magazine featured it in the list of 'The Best of Asia 2010'.

The magazine noted that about 230,000 students appear for the IIT-JEE every year, but just about 5,000 succeed.

Students from poor families have to pass a competitive test to get into Super 30 and then commit themselves to a year of 16 hours a day study routine. Coaching, food and accommodation is free for the students.

Anand, who was mobbed by his students after the results, said it was an outcome of students' hard work and single-point devotion.

'As a teacher, I am happy for what they have achieved, for it will make a lasting difference to their lives. It underlines the cause Super 30 has been championing for the last nine years. The smiles on their faces give me the biggest award,' he added.

'Hard work, proper guidance and supervision are the secrets of our success. We teach students to eat, sleep, walk and talk only IIT,' he said.

In 2003, the first year of the institute, 18 students made it to the IITs. The number rose to 22 in 2004 and to 26 in 2005. In 2007 and 2006, 28 students made it through ITT-JEE. In 2008, for the first time 30 students cracked the exam, a feat which was repeated in 2009 and 2010.

Anand said the institute is supported by the income generated from his Ramanujam School of Mathematics, which has students who can afford to pay fees.

The Super 30 was started by Anand along with Bihar's Additional Director General of Police Abhyanand. Three years back, Abhyanand dissociated himself from the institute.

Blast near Delhi High Court, no casualties

May 25 , 2011

New Delhi : There was a low intensity blast outside the Delhi High Court complex Wednesday as a crude bomb exploded, police said. There were no casualties or damage.

The blast occurred around 1.15 p.m., a busy weekday afternoon when the court was in session, just a few meters from the Delhi High Court complex.

The explosion took place close to a silver Ford Figo car in a parking bay behind the court premises, close to a monument.

'A small packet was kept close to a car in the parking near gate number seven of the Delhi High Court,' Special Commissioner of Police Dharmendra Kumar told reporters.

He denied reports that there was shrapnel in the packet.

Kumar said it initially looked as if the blast had occurred in the car belonging to lawyer R. Jain. Investigations showed it was a crude bomb.

'It was not an accident,' he stressed, adding that white powder was found around the car.

'The car with registration number DL4C AF 7935 suffered only superficial damage' Kumar said, adding that no one was injured.

'It was a low intensity blast. It is an open access area and anyone can come here. The lawyer to whom the car belonged had nothing to do with the blast,' Kumar said.

He said no damage occurred to any other car in the parking.

An eyewitness, Sanjay Bhatt, said: 'There was a sudden blast in the parking lot. We rushed to the spot and found a black bag burning beside the car.'

Parking attendant Dharamvir said they doused the fire.

'We rushed to the court canteen and brought buckets of water to douse the fire,' the man told IANS.

Police said it was too early to ascertain the motive behind the blast.

The last incident of terror attack here took place in September 2008 when bomb blasts in five different places left 26 people dead and more than 100 injured.

Delhi High Court Bar Association secretary D.K. Sharma alleged conspiracy behind Wednesday's blast and sought better security.

'It is a conspiracy, someone intentionally kept the bag. All the vehicles will be allowed to enter after proper security.'

Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice G.S. Sistani visited the spot and said they would review security in the court premises.