NEW DELHI: I have become an antique piece" President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday joked about his transition from an active political life to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

"....of course, it (being the President) has the other side of the picture that perhaps I have become an antique piece in the theatre of the Indian economic activities...," Mukherjee, who was elected President in July after he resigned as the country's finance minister, said at a felicitation programme organised by CII in his honour.

Observers wondered whether Mukherjee was alluding to the government move to review his controversial retrospective tax proposals.

Khandwa: It has been 17 days since villagers in Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh have been protesting in neck-deep water demanding compensation. Sources say that a major breakthrough is likely. Even as a Central fact-finding team reaches Khandwa on Monday, sources have indicated to CNN-IBN that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan is likely to agree on the deduction of water level at the Omkareshwar Dam to 189 metre.

Bombay High Court after calling the Pune Police Crime Branch's investigations into the case "tardy and lopsided".

AN Prasad, who is a Pune-based advocate, said that the Crime Branch was trying to protect his daughter's boyfriend, Nimesh Sinha, who was present at the time of the crime.

The Opposition Congress in the south Delhi municipal corporation (SDMC) has demanded a CBI inquiry into the "waterless urinal fraud".

The party alleged that over 1,000 urinals were built ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games but most of the toilets built are currently not
functional as there is no mechanism in place to maintain them.

Claiming that a huge fraud has been committed in the name of such urinals, leader of the opposition in SDMC Farhad Suri said the MCD built 997 such toilets before the games at a cost of Rs. 125 crore. But the plan was flawed from its inception and the entire sum has been wasted due to the failure of the project.

New Delhi, Sep 9: Telecom regulator TRAI has asked telecom companies to de-activate the international calling facility in pre-paid numbers and restore it only after a subscriber gives his explicit consent to avail this facility.

"Inform all pre-paid subscribers having ISD facility, through SMS, within 10 days of the date of issue of this direction, that ISD facility of the subscribers shall be discontinued after sixty days," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a directive to telcos.

"If such subscribers want to continue with ISD facility, they should give their explicit consent for availing such facility within 60 days of the receipt of the SMS," it added.

Slamming Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi over the Supreme Court's strictures in the Soharabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, his bete noire Keshubhai Patel has asked if Modi is 'Chief Minister' or a 'Crime Manager'.

"I want to ask if CM of Gujarat a Chief Minister or a Crime Manager?" Patel wrote on his blog today.
 

Raipur, Sep 8:  Amid reports that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) may interrogate the chief ministers of some states, including Chhattisgarh, about the allocation of coal blocks, Chief Minister Raman Singh Friday termed this "a waste of time".
"No need to interrogate anyone here. All records are with the central government. Even recommendations made by the state regarding coal blocks allotment are in public domain," Singh said.

Is it a compliment when the government of one of the largest countries in the world demands that you apologise for something you wrote? Ask Simon Denyer, India bureau chief of The Washington Post and a former Reuters editor based in Washington D.C. and India.



Denyer in a Post article called India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh a “dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government”. Denyer also said that the 79-year-old Singh has fallen from grace, and that he no longer fits the image of being a “scrupulously honorable, humble and intellectual technocrat”.

External Affairs Minister S M Krishna began crucial talks with his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar on Saturday to review the second round of resumed dialogue with issues like terrorism to be on top of the agenda.

The one-to-one meeting between Krishna and Khar was followed by delegation-level talks between the two sides.

Indian officials earlier said that terrorism will form the core of New Delhi's discussions, particularly the slow pace of the Mumbai attack case trial.

Tighten your purses because petrol is likely to get dearer by Rs.5. According to sources the oil ministry has agreed to the demands of Oil Marketing Firms (OMCs) and the price hike will be anytime on Friday.

Incidentally, the oil ministry may actually allow OMCs to announce the hike.

According to sources, the government gave OMCs the okay to increase prices just after the monsoon session of the Parliament, which is slated to end on Friday. While there is no confirmation on the quantum of the hike, sources said after number crunching OMCs indicated an increase in the range of Rs.4 to Rs.5 per litre.