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IMRAN Khan has blamed the UK government for a senior politician's murder.   Zahra Shahid Hussain, part of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, was shot dead by gunmen in Karachi ahead of re-polling in the region.   Khan blamed political leader Altaf Hussain, who is in exile in London, for the attack alleging he is "directly responsible".   The former cricketer added: "I also hold the British government responsible as I ha]]>
  INDIA says all issues will be “on the table”, including a recent border spat and a festering trade imbalance, during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to the South Asian giant which starts on Sunday (May 19). At the same time New Delhi thinks “very highly” of Li’s decision to make Indiahis first overseas stop since taking charge as premier, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said on Saturday (May 18). On Sunday (May 19), L]]>
  US OFFICIALS opened an investigation on Saturday (May 18) into a rush-hour collision between two commuter trains that injured more than 70 passengers and severed a key rail link. Train service in the busy Northeast corridor from New York City to New Haven, Connecticut used by tens of thousands of commuters was suspended indefinitely and will likely be snarled for days as officials seek to determine the causes of the crash. Investigators from the National Transportation and ]]>
  GUNMEN have killed a Pakistani politician from Imran Khan’s party in the southern port city of Karachi on the eve of a partial re-run of May 11 polls that were marked by more than 150 killings. Zohra Hussain, 59, vice president of the women’s wing of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the province of Sindh, was targeted by three gunmen on a motorcycle outside her home in an upmarket part of the city late on Saturday (May 18). Former cricket star Khan was quick to]]>
  BOLLYWOOD superstar Sanjay Dutt, who is in jail for arms possession, is being held in a cell built for militants where he cannot see daylight and wants to be transferred, a report said on Saturday (May 18). Dutt, 53, surrendered on Thursday (May 16) to serve out the remaining three-and-a-half years of a five-year term in a case linked to deadly 1993 Mumbai bombings. Dutt's lawyer, Rizwan Merchant, has demanded the transfer of the actor whom he said was being kept in the]]>
THE arrest of three Indian cricketers for spot-fixing has prompted new fears over the growing influence of betting mafias on the game in the subcontinent and despair about the “cancer” of corruption.   Police behind the arrests say the trio were acting under orders from crime syndicates whose bosses are based in the Gulf but are well aware of the rewards if they can manipulate events on the field throughout the cricket-mad region.   Commentators meanwhile]]>
THE mother of a 23-year-old Indian student who was fatally gang-raped in New Delhi last December appeared in court on Friday (May 17) to plead for justice.   The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, urged the judge to ensure justice is not denied to her daughter, after she had been cross-examined by the defence lawyers.   “Honourable judge, please deliver justice to my daughter,” she said with folded hands.   A lawyer for one of the]]>
DALIA Ghosh, a 28-year-old nurse in Kolkata, invested her savings in an unlicensed fund run by media conglomerate Saradha Group last year, hoping to start her own clothes business.   But Saradha went bust in April, wiping out as much as $3.7bn (£2.43bn) in deposits from mostly low-income Indians, miring West Bengal’s government in scandal, and illustrating the risks faced by the millions who live outside the banking system.   Saradha, which until April ha]]>
A BREACH of security at two payment card processing companies in India that led to heists at cash machines around the world has reopened questions on the risks of outsourcing sensitive financial services to the Asian nation.   Global banks that ship work to be processed in India, either in-house or to big IT services vendors, were already under pressure to step up oversight of back-office functions after a series of scandals last year.   Last week, U.S. prosecutors s]]>
PEOPLE are living longer than ever and “dramatic” gains in life expectancy show no sign of slowing down, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday (May 15).   “The global life expectancy has increased from 64 years in 1990 to 70 years in 2011. That’s dramatic,” Colin Mathers, coordinator for mortality and burden of disease at the WHO, said as the organisation launched its annual world health statistics report.   “That’s]]>
ACTOR Sanjay Dutt, one of Bollywood’s biggest stars, has returned to prison to serve the remainder of a five-year sentence for firearms offences during the Mumbai bombings 20 years ago, forcing at least one film onto the back burner.   Dutt, popular for his role as a do-good gangster in the “Munnabhai” films, was sentenced to six years jail in 2007 for acquiring illegal weapons from men convicted for the 1993 attacks that killed 257 people.   He ser]]>
  TWO INDIAN teenagers have been conferred with the prestigious ‘20 Under 20’ Thiel Fellowship  2013, worth $100,000 (£65,591) each, which allows youngsters to pursue their own business idea. Indian resident Ritesh Agarwal and Pao-Alto based Diwank Singh Tomer will now be mentored by the likes of PayPal co-founders Peter Thiel and Elon Musk as well as Facebook co-founder Sean Parker as they work on technical projects and l]]>
    BRITAIN has launched a new ‘super priority’ same-day visa service for urgent travellers from  India, the first-of-of-its-kind service to be launched by the UK anywhere in the world.   The super priority visa service had been announced by British Prime Minister David Cameron during his visit to  India in February this year.   The service launched by the UK Home Office opened for appointment bookings in]]>
  A LEADING Indian-origin councillor has been elected as the deputy mayor of a London borough. Delhi-born Sunil Chopra has been elected as the deputy mayor of Southwark. The general secretary of the Indian Overseas Congress, London, is the first and only Indian-origin councillor in London Borough of Southwark Council, which has only 1.5 per cent Indian-origin people. Chopra said, “It is not only a great honour for me and my family but for the whol]]>
MOTHER-TO-BE Kate Middleton is craving Indian vegetable curry cooked by an Indian couplein the  Bucklebury neighbourhood. The seven-month pregnant Duchess of Cambridge has enjoyed the homemade dish cooked for her by Chan Shingadia and her husband Hash, who run the Spar shop in Kate’s hometown village of Bucklebury in southern England. The Indian couple are family friends of Kate’s parents, Carol and Michael. The Duchess, 31, picked ]]>
  AN INDIAN-ORIGIN trade adviser is among nearly 1,000 high-profile Britons named on a vast database of offshore tax havens. According to a Sunday Times report, Alpesh Patel – who advises UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) on trade with India –has been named alongside footballer John Fashanu. Both men have denied receiving any tax advantage from offshore arrangements. The set of 2.5 million leaked documents being looked into by UK’s HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)]]>
  HEALTH experts have warned about the risks of buying unlicensed drugs like Viagra from India. It follows a raid where over £500,000 of sex, diet and hair loss drugs – which have not been tested in Britain - were seized in west London. These pills, which are sold by rogue traders in pubs and online, could be fakes. Tests have shown that some counterfeit Viagra contains pesticides and printer ink. An estimated 100,000 people die a year after buying lethal medi]]>
STATE-RUN Air India on Wednesday (May 15) resumed flights of its Dreamliner jets four months after global regulators grounded the Boeing planes following technical glitches in the passenger aircraft.   All 50 Dreamliners operating globally were grounded in January after a fire aboard a parked Japan Airlines 787 in January and a smoking battery that forced the emergency landing of an All Nippon Airways 787 the same month.   The US Federal Aviation Administration appro]]>
BOLLYWOOD star Sanjay Dutt was set to return to jail on Thursday to serve the remaining three-and-a-half years of his sentence for possessing illegal weapons, in a case linked to deadly bomb blasts in Mumbai 20 years ago.   The popular 53-year-old actor must surrender to authorities after India’s top court dismissed a last-ditch plea for more time earlier this week.   Dutt was convicted in 2006 of possessing guns supplied by gangsters behind the 1993 bomb attac]]>
FOUR Indian Americans, including a physician and three co-owners of a health clinic from Chicago, have been charged with healthcare fraud estimated to be running into millions of dollars.   Federal law enforcement officials said three Indian Americans - Ankur Roy, Akash Patel and Dipen Desai - owned and operated Selectcare Health Inc that provided outpatient physical and respiratory therapy in Park Ridge and Skokie.   They have been cha]]>
A DEFENDANT on trial over a fatal gang-rape in New Delhi last December is critically ill after being attacked in prison, his lawyer said on Wednesday (May 15), weeks after the main accused died in the same jail.   Vinay Sharma was rushed to the state-run Lok Nayak Hospital in New Delhi on Tuesday (May 10) with chest injuries after he was assaulted in Tihar Jail, lawyer A P Singh told reporteers, also alleging that his client’s food had been poisoned.   “H]]>
INDIA’S “Red Brigade” is a group of angry young women with a simple message for the country’s sexual predators: change your ways or be ready to face the consequences.   Dressed in bright red shirts and loose black pants, the brigade’s members are fed up with deeply ingrained patriarchal mindsets and promote a brand of vigilante justice that is testing the law in their home state of Uttar Pradesh.   Their leader is 25-year-old Usha Vishwa]]>
DOCTOR on Wednesday (May 15) successfully carried out life-saving surgery on an Indian baby suffering from a rare disorder that caused her head to swell to nearly double its size, her neurosurgeon told reporters.   “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure on 15-month-old Roona Begum, speaking exclusively to a reporter inside the operating theatre at a hospital in New Delhi.   “It’s defin]]>
A PAKISTANI anti-terrorism court on Tuesday (May 14) extended former military ruler Pervez Musharraf’s house arrest over the murder of Benazir Bhutto for 14 days, a prosecutor said.   The court in the garrison town of Rawalpindi neighbouring Islamabad also put off hearing a bail application by Musharraf until May 20, Chaudhry Azhar told reporters.   He said, “the court extended Musharraf’s judicial remand until May 28 when it hears the case again,&r]]>
INDIA has begun moves to work out an out-of-court settlement with British mobile giant Vodafone over a multi-billion-dollar tax bill, a report said on Tuesday (May 14).   The government has been pursuing Vodafone over what it says are unpaid taxes stemming from its 2007 takeover of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa’s Indian cellular unit.   The tax battle has contributed to a souring of overseas investor sentiment toward Asia’s third-largest economy. ]]>
AN AIR India flight to Bangalore was diverted to another city after the pilot returned from a toilet break and found the door to the cockpit jammed shut, the state-run carrier said on Tuesday (May 14).   The flight left Delhi for Bangalore on Monday (May 13) but the plane had to be diverted to Bhopal in central India when the pilot realised he could not get back to the controls.   “The commander of the flight had left the cockpit for a short while to visit the ]]>
INDIA’S inflation cooled last month to a surprise 41-month low, official data showed on Tuesday (May 14), giving the central bank more room to cut interest rates to battle the worst economic slowdown in a decade.   The Wholesale Price Index, the most closely watched inflation gauge, dropped to 4.89 per cent in April on an annual basis, more than a full percentage point below the previous month’s reading of 5.96 per cent.   “Inflation is moving in th]]>
BOLLYWOOD actor Sanjay Dutt was set to go to jail this week after India’s top court on Tuesday (May 14) dismissed his last-ditch plea for a review of a five-year sentence related to the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.   The muscular, tattooed 53-year-old was convicted by an anti-terrorism court in 2006 of possessing arms supplied by the plotters of the deadly bomb attacks, but was freed on bail after serving 18 months in prison.   In March this year the Supreme Court ]]>
INDIA is hoping Nawaz Sharif’s return to power in Pakistan will herald an upturn in ties between the nuclear rivals as long as he can keep the generals who ousted him last time at bay, analysts say.   Sharif’s last stint in power from 1997-99 saw India and Pakistan clash in a limited conflict known as the Kargil war as well as Islamabad declaring itself a nuclear power, weeks after New Delhi said it had carried out its own tests.   But observers say India]]>
GUJARAT Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (May 13 hit out at the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government over its handling of foreign policy, saying the  country is being ruled by “‘weak” leaders.     Asserting that he has given a new meaning to “development” during his 12-year rule in Gujarat, Modi also said the greatest challenge facing India is restoring the “trust” of the people. He also criticized the governme]]>
PAKISTAN’S incoming prime minister Nawaz Sharif said on Monday (May 13) that he would be “very happy” to invite India’s Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to his swearing-in ceremony.   “I will be very happy to extend that invitation. If they come it will be a great pleasure,” Sharif told foreign reporters at his Raiwind estate when asked by an Indian journalist if he would consider inviting Dr Singh.   “I had a call from him y]]>
INDIA’S Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Sunday (May 12) congratulated Pakistani politician Nawaz Sharif on his “emphatic victory” in historic elections and said he hoped for better relations.   Dr Singh wrote on his official Twitter account, “Congratulations to Mr. Nawaz Sharif and his party for their emphatic victory in Pakistan’s elections”.   He said he hoped to work with Sharif to chart “a new course for the relations]]>
THE Indian government’s cyber watchdog is investigating how security at two companies that are part of the country’s vast IT services industry was breached in a global ATM heist that saw $45m (£29.45m) stolen from two banks in the Middle East.   EnStage Inc, which operates from Bangalore, and ElectraCard Services, based in the Indian city of Pune, processed card payments for the two banks that were hit in the theft, several people familiar with the situation sai]]>
FORMER Pakistani leader Nawaz Sharif appealed for cross-party support to help rebuild the nuclear-armed but economically crippled nation after winning historic elections that defied Taliban violence. Partial, unofficial results from Saturday's (11) election represented a stunning comeback for the wealthy 63-year-old tycoon who was deposed as prime minister in a 1999 military coup and spent years in jail and exile. But Sharif looked short of an outright majority, raising the ]]>
  THE NEW York Times bureau chief in Pakistan was expelled from the country early on Sunday (May 12) after being ordered to leave for unspecified “undesirable activities”. Declan Walsh, who was hired by the newspaper last year after covering Pakistan for British newspaper The Guardian since 2004, was handed an expulsion order at his home at 12:30 am, according to the Times. “Here I go. Hard to believe this is happening,” the 39-year-old tweeted early o]]>
  THE DEATH toll from the collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh rose to 1,125 on Sunday (May 12) after 15 more bodies were found in the rubble overnight, 19 days after the disaster struck. Senior government official Zillur Chowdhury said that the death toll in one of the world’s worst industrial disasters “stands at 1,125” and could rise further as cranes and bulldozers have yet to move all the rubble. More than 3,000 garment workers were on sh]]>
  MAOIST rebels killed three policemen on Sunday (May 12) during an overnight attack on a state-run broadcaster in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, a senior police official said. The shootout with state police who were guarding the building began after national broadcaster Doordarshan aired its last programme of the day from its local office in Jagdalpur town, about 244 kilometres (151 miles) from state capital Raipur, in the conflict-prone Bastar region. “Thre]]>
  FORMER Pakistani leader Nawaz Sharif appealed for cross-party support to help rebuild the nuclear-armed but economically crippled nation after winning historic elections that defied Taliban violence. Partial, unofficial results from Saturday’s (May 11) election represented a stunning comeback for the wealthy 63-year-old tycoon who was deposed as prime minister in a 1999 military coup and spent years in jail and exile. But Sharif looked short of an outright majority, r]]>
A STRING of militant attacks and gunfights that killed at least 15 people cast a long shadow over Pakistan’s general election on Saturday (May 11), but millions still turned out to vote in a landmark test of the troubled country’s democracy.   The poll, in which some 86 million people are eligible to vote, will bring the first transition between civilian governments in a country ruled by the military for more than half of its turbulent history.   Despite ]]>
TWO Indian cabinet ministers quit late Friday (May 10) over corruption scandals that have engulfed Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s graft-tainted Congress government, which faces elections within a year.   Law minister Ashwani Kumar handed in his resignation after opposition outrage over government interference in a police investigation soon after railway minister Pawan Bansal quit over a separate bribe allegation controversy.   The two men separately visited]]>
SULPHUR dioxide emissions from India’s top copper smelter were within limits during an inspection by a court panel, according to a report seen by reporters, which could help lead to a ruling in favour of reopening the plant.   The Sterlite Industries’ plant, which produces 30,000 tonnes of refined copper a month - or more than half of India’s total production, was shut on March 30 after complaints about emissions. The shutdown is squeezing local supplies of refi]]>
RESCUERS pulled a woman on Friday (May 10) from the rubble of a Bangladesh garment factory 17 days after it collapsed, astonishing workmen who had been searching for bodies of victims of a disaster that has killed more than 1,000 people.   Hundreds of onlookers burst into cheers as army engineers pulled the woman from the basement of the building after a workman helping to clear the wreckage reported hearing her faint cries of “Save me, save me” from beneath the ruins]]>
POSCO’s  planned $12bn (£7.78bn) steel project in India moved a step forward on Friday (May 10) after a court handed a decision on a mining licence to the government, raising the South Korean firm’s chances of getting preferential access to iron ore.   The world’s fourth-largest steel producer has waited eight years to get necessary clearances, land and an iron ore mining licence to start work on the project, billed as India’s largest foreign di]]>
BOLLYWOOD actor Sanjay Dutt’s hope of getting relief in 1993 Mumbai blasts case was on Friday (May 10) dashed with the Supreme Court dismissing his plea seeking review of its judgement on his conviction and five-year jail term.   A bench of justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan, which had delivered on March 21 verdict, refused to review its verdict on Dutt’s plea.   Dutt, who was granted four weeks more time to surrender to undergo remaining three-and-a-h]]>
IRAN has offered new, more alluring terms to reluctant Indian companies to win the investment it craves for its decaying energy sector suffering from tight Western sanctions.   Iran started offering production sharing contracts (PSCs), long denied to investors, to a group of Indian oil executives visiting Tehran in January, an Indian industry source said on Thursday (May 9).   Tehran’s insistence, until now, on paying contractors back in oil made projects unatt]]>
INDIA’S industrial output grew by a surprise 2.5 per cent in March from a year ago, official figures showed on Friday (May 10), fuelling hopes that the country’s sharp economic slowdown may have bottomed out.   The March output growth from India’s factories, mines and utilities surpassed financial market expectations of around a two per cent increase and was up from a 0.6 per cent rise posted in February.   But the output figures still are far below]]>
THE death toll from the catastrophic collapse of a Bangladesh factory building, the world’s worst industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984, has climbed above 1,000 and more bodies might still be trapped inside as rescuers struggle to end the salvage operation.   More than two weeks after the accident, bodies were still being pulled from the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex, and on Friday (May 10) a spokesman at the army control room coordinating the op]]>
NAWAZ Sharif, seen as the front-runner in Pakistan’s election race, said he would not allow militant groups to attack India from his country and would work to improve ties with rival New Delhi if elected.   “If I become the prime minister I will make sure that the Pakistani soil is not used for any such designs against India,” Sharif told CNN-IBN in an interview.   Despite recent strains, India and Pakistan’s relations have improved after nose]]>
  AN AUCTION of Mahatma Gandhi’s personal effects and documents will take place in Ludlow in the UK later this month. Articles included in the sale are those which belonged to the father of the nation when he was recovering from an illness in Juhu in 1924. The articles up for sale in Ludlow, include his personal prayer beads, shawl, made from linen thread he spun himself, bed sheet, personal bowl with fork and spoon, personal drinking]]>
INDIA’S Supreme Court accused the government on Wednesday (May 8) of interfering in a police investigation into the allocation of commercial coalfields, in a damning indictment of political control over India’s top law enforcement agency.   The finding was a new blow for a government battered by a seemingly unending series of corruption scandals, and overshadowed a rare election victory for the ruling party in Karnataka.   The Central Bureau of Investigat]]>