A bomb detonated in a crowded bakery popular with foreigners in western India killing nine people and wounding 57, officials said Sunday, the first terrorist attack in the country since the 2008 Mumbai massacre.

Initially the police said it was a gas cylinder blast, but the explosion is now suspected to be an improvised explosive device (IED) using an ammonium nitrate fuel oil mix, with RDX as a booster, police sources said. About 7 kg explosives may have been used. The bodies were charred beyond recognition. Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said preliminary reports indicated that it was a bomb blast.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rajendra Sonawane said, “Prima facie, it appears to be a bomb blast”.

The injured have been admitted to Sassoon and Budhani hospitals. Arun Jamkar, dean of Sassoon Hospital, said eight victims are critical.

Shahid Azmi (32), the lawyer representing Fahim Ansari, one of three men being tried in India for their role in the Mumbai 26/11 attack in 2008, was shot dead on Thursday.

Some unidentified persons barged into Azmi’s office in Taximen’s Colony in Kurla, north-east Mumbai suburb, just before 9 p.m. and opened fire at him.

Azmi sustained four bullet injuries and was taken to the nearby Rajawadi Hospital in a critical condition, where he died later.

Azmi, 32, represented Fahim Ansari, one of the key accused in the ongoing 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks trial.

At the tender age of 15, Azmi was arrested for violence during the communal riots that rocked Mumbai between December 1992-January 1993.

In 1992, Azmi was accused of plotting to kill Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray.

Charged under the now-defunct Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA), Azmi was awarded a five-year sentence in 1999, but was acquitted the same year by the Supreme Court.

When he was in jail between 1992-1999, he studied for a post-graduate course and after acquittal by the apex court, he studied for a law degree before entering legal practice.

Shahid, who was nephew of Samajwadi Party leader and Govandi MLA Abu Asim Azmi, had also appeared as defence counsel for the accused in July 11 Mumbai local train blasts.

In a dramatic twist to the 26/11 terror attacks case, main accused Mohammad Ajmal Kasab on Friday retracted from his earlier statement

Denying all charges against him, Kasab said the statement was made under duress.

Kasab on Friday told a Mumbai court that he was not involved in terror attacks.

Kasab and nine other Pakistan terrorists sneaked into Mumbai by sea in November, 2008 and went on a killing spree. Kasab was the only of them to be captured alive.

The trial in the case, which is being heard by Special Judge ML Tahilyani at Mumbai’s high-security Arthur Road Central Jail, is now in its last lap with over 250 witnesses examined by the prosecution.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy and four others have been killed.
The chopper carrying five persons in total including the CM, Mr. Reddy’s went missing and then located on Rudrakonda hill in the dense Nallamalla forests at a distance of 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool town. Mangled chopper was then hounded.

Five bodies have been found near the site. All confirmed dead. YSR Reddy along with the pilot captain SK Bhatia, Co-pilot MS Reddy, Principal Secretary, S. Subramaniyam and the chief security officer A S C Wesley declared dead.

A doctor by training, Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy, or YSR as he was popularly known, was known for his strong administrative skills and whose second stint as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh this year broke a 53-year-old jinx for the Congress party.

Now coming back to the sting operation against Uma Khurana.  After watching the report on the TV news channels all thought that what was shown was authentic. Eventually, the teacher was converted to a notorious criminal for the parents of the children studying in the school and the people living across the nation as well. Uma Khurana was sacked from the job and was badly abused and assaulted by a mob near the school. Later she was arrested and remanded in judicial custody for her alleged involvement in the prostitution racket.

A surprising development occurred in this case, when Delhi Police arrested the correspondent of the TV News Channel, Prakash Singh. Besides, Rashmi Singh, who writes for a Hindi newspaper, posed as a schoolgirl and the victim of the prostitution racket in the sting operation, was also taken in judicial custody till 15th September.

There is a big twist in Delhi School Sex Racket case as Police has found the so called ‘sting operation’ carried out by ‘LIVE INDIA’ TV channel on a school teacher allegedly forcing her students into prostitution seems to be fake in the first appearance.

According to the police, there might be a clash between Virendra Arora, a suspect of supplying girl to the school teacher and Uma Khurana, the prime accuse of sex racket case as called by the Private Television channel over the repayment of Rs 1 lakh which Uma Khurana owned from Virender Arora and was not taking interest to return it. Virendra Arora informed the reporter of ‘LIVE INDIA’ channel regarding the sex racket allegedly conducted by Uma Khurana, who contacted the victim girl of the sting operation.

The police believes that the victim girl is neither a student nor a prostitute, but was a journalist in her early twenties in a small news paper in Noida and she was given to believe that sting work would enhance her job prospects and also save the lives of innocents trapped by Khurana. The police has arrested her under Section 192 (fabricating evidence), 193 (punishment for false evidence), 211 (false charges with intention to injure), 419 (impersonation) and 420 (cheating) of IPC.

Police have found no evidence against Uma khurana till now and said, “Neither was the girl shown in the sting a student of Khurana, nor had a deal been fixed. The girl enacted it all with the other reporter. She was part of a conspiracy to implicate the teacher”, According to  Additional Commissioner (Crime) Muktesh Chander.

According to police sources, Virendra Arora, a small businessman and living in the trans-Yamuna area of Delhi has been already arrested on the disclosure of Uma as she said that he had provided the girl who was shown in the sting operation. Investigators said that it was Arora’s idea to frame the teacher in the sex racket who had fallen out with Khurana, with whom he used to run an informal chit fund. Virendra had asked Prakash to loom Khurana by offering her a partnership in a jewellery business. He had said it would be easy to deceive her into revealing her prostitution ring, as she can do anything for earning easy money .

The police have also arrested the reporter of the channel in the suspicion of framing the alleged teacher in the sex racket by conducting fake sting operation. Delhi’s Tis Hazari court has sent the reporter for seven days imprisonment alleged charge of conducting fake sting operation to frame any individual.

According to Arvinder singh Lovely, Delhi Education Minister , “The official report is yet to come, only then we will decide what further action to take,” after asking the fate of Uma Khurana, who is likely to be trapped in the sting operation.

On the fake sting operation, According to Priyaranjan Das Munshi, Minister of Information and Broadcasting , “Now days, it is the prime work of two or three specific TV channels to conduct the sting operation not for extracting the truth, but only to boost the TRP of the Channel. We will soon put a bill before the Parliament to pass it against these fake sting operations.”

According to Live India Channel CEO Sudhir Chaudhary “The entire sting is not fake but yes there are weak links, which we also came to know after reading media reports and after police started investigating.”

The Delhi High court issued strict orders in response to the media reports and asked the Delhi government and the Delhi Police to reply on the authenticity of the sting operation by Monday. However, according to current investigation, it appears that Uma Khurana, was framed and there are chances that the allegations against her may not be true. So, the issue has once again raised a number of questions against the functioning of the media in our country.

So far the investigation has revealed that she was a victim of a fake sting operation conducted by the private TV news channel,’ Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Alok Aggarwal said while granting her bail.

Khurana’s lawyer Vivek Sharma said: ‘We argued in the court that she was arrested only on the basis of a sting operation and even the prosecution has admitted that the sting operation was doctored.’

The Delhi police  gave a clean chit to Delhi Government teacher Uma Khurana in the fake sting operation case, even as the Delhi High Court asked the Union Government what action it planned to take against the private Hindi news channel that conducted the sting.

In a reply to the summoning of the case file relating to Ms. Khurana by the High Court, the police informed a Division Bench comprising Justice M.K. Sharma and Justice Sanjiv Khanna that they had informed the Additional Director of Education of the Delhi Government that “Uma Khurana has not been found to be involved in any organised prostitution racket of school girls as shown in the sting operation and that part of the sting operation was stage-managed.”

The Bench has asked the Union Government to file a reply to a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction for framing guidelines for sting operations by news channels.

After all Broadly speaking, raising fingers against the functioning of the press, only due to a few irresponsible reporters or correspondents is not fair. Even today, a couple of centuries since its birth, the press is fair, fulfilling its duties very well and has maintained its credibility in the country and amongst its people. Most importantly, questions will always be raised against the press and it’s functioning. It is the duty of each and every person related to journalism how they understand and fulfill their responsibilities and keep themselves away from controversies.

Hot and dusty desert winds have caused a heatwave across the plains of northern India, killing 74 people over the last week.

Most of the dead were beggars, homeless and people working in the open hit by sunstrokes and dehydration.

Temperatures peaked on Saturday, reaching 48.9 degrees Celsius (120 Fahrenheit) in Ganganagar in Rajasthan, According to S.C. Bhan, director at the Regional Meteorological Centre in New Delhi.

“It is a heatwave. After the next two days it will be over,” Bhan said, adding that it was caused by winds from the Thar desert, which spreads from Rajasthan into neighbouring Pakistan.

In New Delhi, the mercury touched a season high of 44.9 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) on Saturday, Bhan said.

People dozed the afternoon away under trees and on shady pavements while those at home stayed close to their air-conditioners when there were no power cuts — a frequent occurrence over the weekend.

Heritage sites in Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir are among the five Indian sites included in the list of 100 most endangered sites of the world.

A New York-based non-profit group has come up with a World Monuments Fund’s list for 2008 listing out endangered heritage sites across the world, threatened by neglect, vandalism, armed conflict, challenges or natural disaster and require international attention.

The group said more than 75 percent of endangered sites on previous lists had been rescued or were well on the way to being preserved.

Amer fort and Jantar Mantar in Jaipur are among the five Indian sites in the watch list.

Amer fort, a magnificent palace made of red sandstone and marble, is wearing down due to climatic changes coupled with improper planning and heavy load of tourists.

“Lots of unplanned construction and rise in population has increased pollution in this place, which is dangerous for the environment,” said P.K. Soni, Director of Institute of Conservation of Cultural Properties.

Jantar Mantar, an observatory built by Maharaja Jai Singh, is another site that requires immediate intervention by the authorities. It attracts about 200,000 visitors every year.

“It is really scientific and for two centuries astronomical analysis, whether cosmology or monsoon prediction, has been done from this observatory. Many scientists and tourists visit this place,” said B.L. Gupta, Director, Archaeology, in the government of Rajasthan.

The list also includes the Dal lake and its vicinity in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir. The heritage watchdog says silting and human encroachment of its banks is threatening the lake’s environment.

“The area that has been included in this (Srinagar Heritage Zone) is about 15 square kilometres. We have included Mughal garden, built architecture and part of water bodies in it. If we look at it from tourism point of view then heritage tourism is extremely important component of our efforts,” said Nayeem Akhtar, secretary, Jammu and Kashmir tourism department.

The two other sites identified are Old Leh town, also in Jammu and Kashmir state, and Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu.