| Mumbai
placed on alert after IB terror strike warning Mumbai:
Security has been beefed up in Mumbai and neighbouring districts following an
Intelligence Bureau (IB) terror alert. According to Maharashtra’s Minister of
State for Home, Naseem Khan, vigil has been increased at railway stations and
major financial institutions, based on the IB input. The IB gives such inputs
regularly to the state governments. It is believed that the IB warned that at
least seven places in Maharashtra, including a reputed bank in Mumbai and an important
railway junction in Navi Mumbai could be targeted. It described the threat as
specific and the most serious in last two years, sources added. According to police,
the security cover has been increased at Church Gate, Dadar, Andheri and a few
railway stations on the Central Railway''s Harbor line in Navi Mumbai. The alert
was forwarded on July 8 after security forces recovered photographs of targets
in Maharashtra from a terror suspect who was detained in Jammu and Kashmir. The
information gathered from the interrogation was shared with Maharashtra police,
sources said. Sources said the IB alert did not specify the number of terrorists
planning to carry out the attack. Heavy
rains, flash floods kill 15 people in Orissa Top Kalahandi
(Orissa): Heavy rains and flash floods have killed 15 people in Orissa state,
authorities said on Wednesday. People were seen wading through submerged roads
in villages and towns in knee-deep water in Kalahandi district in the state, which
received 260 millimetres of rain in the past 24 hours. "Fifteen deaths have been
reported by various Collectors but out of the total fifteen, four dead bodies
are yet to be found," said Surya Narayan Patro, State minister for Revenue and
Disaster management. The Sate Government has sanctioned a compensation of 100,000
rupees to each of the families of those who perished. Local authorities have also
been asked to stock food and put rescue teams on standby with the meteorological
department predicting more rains in the next 48 hours. Heavy rains also breached
roads in state capital Bhubaneshwar. The State of over 36 million people is prone
to cyclones and floods that killed hundreds in previous years. PM
tells NAM no nation should provide safe haven to terrorists Top Sharm-el-Sheikh
(Egypt): Addressing the 118-member XVth Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit
in this Red Sea resort on Wednesday afternoon, India’s Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan
Singh, without directly naming or targeting Pakistan, said that no nation should
provide safe haven to terrorists. Apparently setting the tone for what he is likely
to take up with Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani during their meeting
on Thursday, Dr. Singh said that in recent years terrorists have become "more
sophisticated, more organized and more daring". Dr. Singh said that terror infrastructures
in any part of the world must and should be dismantled. He was indirectly referring
to the number of times India has been subjected to terror strikes in the recent
past, the alleged export of terror from Pakistani soil, and in particular to the
Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008 in which more than 180 persons had been
killed and more than 300 had been maimed by terrorists from Pakistan. "Terrorists
and those who aid and abet them must be brought to justice. The infrastructure
of terrorism must be dismantled and there should be no safe havens for terrorists
because they do not represent any cause, group or religion. It is time we agree
on a comprehensive convention on international terrorism," the Prime Minister
said. The convention would bind countries to an internationally accepted definition
of terrorism and abide by a code of conduct in dealing with the issue of trans-border
terrorism, he added. The Prime Minister said "extremism, intolerance and terrorism
are our antitheses; they seek to destroy us and our movement." Dwelling on other
issues, Dr. Singh called on multilateral institutions like the UN to include developing
countries as members. "Developing countries must be fully represented in the decision
making levels of international institutions if they are to remain effective. Decision
making processes, whether in the United Nations or the international financial
institutions continue to be based on charters written more than 60 years ago,
though the world has changed greatly since then,” he said.
Recalling the first NAM summit of 1961, Dr. Singh said India''''s first Prime
Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was one of the founders of movement, had spoken
of the "moral force" of the grouping. He said Nehru’s words held true even today.
"History has shown that non-alignment is an idea that evolves but does not fade.
We must take it forward, harnessing it to meet the challenges of today," he said.
The relevance of NAM, he countered, has never been greater than today. Focusing
on the economic challenges ahead, he said no other NAM summit had ever "been held
in an economic and financial crisis of the magnitude that now grips the world".
Though the crisis had emanated from advanced industrial economies, "developing
economies, the members of our movement, have been the hardest hit," he said. The
Prime Minister asserted that NAM had a "great stake in ensuring that steps planned
to revive the global economy take into account the concerns of developing countries."
"These include the challenges of food security, energy security, the environment
and the reform of institutions of global governance." He said NAM had a "crucial
stake in a rule-based multilateral trading system and in an early conclusion of
a balanced and fair agreement in the Doha round." He also said that cooperation,
trade and investment among NAM countries could contribute significantly to reviving
the world economy. Speaking about climate change, Dr. Singh said: "We are already
making our own significant contributions in this regard, but climate change action
must not perpetuate the poverty of developing countries." NAM should be used to
achieve "a comprehensive, balanced and above all equitable outcome in the ongoing
multilateral negotiations, leading up to the Copenhagen conference in December
this year". 150
people killed in Iran plane crash Top Tehran:
Iranian state television on Wednesday said 150 people died in a plane crash
in the north western part of the country. The official IRNA news agency said that
the plane was traveling from Tehran to Yerevan in Armenia. The flight crashed
16 minutes after its take-off from the International Imam Khomeini Airport," Iran''s
Aviation Organisation spokesman, Reza Jafarzadeh, said. According to Sky News,
the Caspian Airlines jet came down near Jannatabad village, outside Qazvin city,
about 75 miles north west of Tehran. Qazvin emergency services director Hossein
Bahzadpour told IRNA that the plane was completely destroyed and shattered to
pieces, and the wreckage was in flames. According to The Telegraph, Iran has suffered
a number of aviation disasters over the past decade. Dozens of people were killed
in September 2006 when an airliner came off the runway after landing in the eastern
city of Mashhad and burst into flames. In November 2006, an Iranian military plane
crashed on takeoff at Tehran''s Mehrabad airport, killing all 39 people on board,
including 30 members of the elite Revolutionary Guards force. Caspian Airlines
is a Russian-Iranian joint venture founded in 1993. Hillary
Clinton to arrive in India on Friday Top New
Delhi: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will arrive in India on Friday
on a five-day visit with the objective of deepening US-India ties. Clinton will
arrive in Mumbai on July 17 and proceed to New Delhi on July 19 where she will
meet Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister S M Krishna.
She is also scheduled to meet leaders of the opposition, government officials
entrepreneurs, scientists and youth. In Mumbai, Clinton will meet with a broad
cross section of Indian society and pay tribute to 26/11 terror attacks victims.
She will leave New Delhi on July 21 for Thailand. |
