As Bihar heads for what is being billed as a mini-Lok Sabha election, with 49 constituencies going to the polls on Monday, the battle-lines are drawn.

As the BJP-led NDA and the Nitish-Lalu-led grand alliance face off each other, casting other smaller alliances to the margins, the BJP no longer appears to have the edge it had a fortnight ago, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared to be more popular across castes and regions.

No. of seats being contested by different political parties in the first phase:

Party No. of seats
BSP 41
BJP 27
RJD 17
LJP 13
Congress 8
RLSP 6
CPI 25
CPI(M) 12
Live updates:

3:05 pm: 46% poll percentage recorded till 2 pm for the first phase of Bihar Polls.

12:55 pm: 33.13% voter turnout till noon.

11:51 am: 27% voting till 11 a.m.; Maximum 34% voting recorded in Khagaria district.

11:25 am: Polling is likely to pick up by noon, says additional Chief Electoral Officer R. Lakshaman.

11:04 am: While Banka has recorded a maximum turnout of 14 per cent, Samastipur recorded the lowest turnout of seven per cent till 9 a.m.

10:48 am: 16% voting recorded till 10 a.m.

10:40 am: Polling has been remained peaceful in Maoist-affected districts of Munger, Jamui and Lakhisarai.

9:50 am: Over 10% polling till now.

9:25 am: Polling temporarily halted at Ramchandrapur booth number 86 in Sarairanjan constituency due to EVM malfunction.

8:48 am: 6% voting during first hour of polling.

7:52 am: 1,35,72,339 electorate will cast their votes in the 49 seats for which 583 candidates, including 54 women, are in the fray.

7:46 am: Given a bipolar contest and accretion of different social groups under the banner of either alliance, relative turnouts of various communities could clinch the verdict. If MBCs, Dalits and Forward Castes turn out in more numbers than the Muslim-Yadav-Kurmi coalition on polling days, then the NDA may carry the day. More…

7:43 am: Union Minister Giriraj Singh casts his vote in Barahiya.

7:36 am: How women voters can tip the scales in Bihar

Women in Bihar have been agents of change in previous elections and have brought in significant political and policy changes in the State. Bihar is the fourth largest State in India in terms of the total number of electors (55 million). It contains 8 per cent of the total number of electors in the country. More…

7:28 am: Polls are being held in 49 seats, some in Naxal-infested districts of Jamui, Banka, Lakhisarai, Nawada and Munger.

7:26 am: Mr. Modi tweets: “Urging all those voting today in Bihar to vote in large numbers. I particularly urge my young friends to cast their vote.”

7:19 am: The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has an added responsibility — to guard the politicians of Bihar, one of the worst hit by Naxal violence. Of the 15 politicians accorded VIP security cover, 13 are from the BJP or members of its alliance. More…

7:10 am: Polling for first phase begins.

Phase – I constituencies
Kalyanpur (SC) Cheria Bariarpur Parbatta Banka Rajauli (SC)
Warisnagar Bachhwara Bihpur Katoria (ST) Hisua
Samastipur Teghra Gopalpur Belhar Nawada
Ujiarpur Matihani Pirpainti (SC) Tarapur Gobindpur
Morwa Sahebpur Kamal Kahalgaon Munger Warsaliganj
Sarairanjan Begusarai Bhagalpur Jamalpur Sikandra (SC)
Mohiuddinnagar Bakhri (SC) Sultanganj Suryagarha Jamui
Bibhutipur Alauli (SC) Nathnagar Lakhisarai Jhajha
Rosera (SC) Khagaria Amarpur Sheikhpura Chakai
Hasanpur Beldaur Dhauraiya (SC) Barbigha

MUMBAI: At least 10 to 15 Shiv Sena activists attacked Sudheendra Kulkarni, organiser of former Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book launch, hours before event, NDTV reported.

“When I got out of home, a group of Shiv Sainiks ─ some 10, 15 of them ─ stopped my car. When I came out, they smeared my entire body with black oil paint, shouted slogans and said ‘we had ordered you to cancel the programme, you didn’t listen to us, this is what we’ll do’. They abused me,” he said.

The organiser of the programme said he had earlier told Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray that the programme will not be cancelled. “We respect your right to protest peacefully, you should respect our right to hold the programme … We are not doing anything unlawful,” he told NDTV.

Kulkarni said the government has assured security for Kasuri and the programme.

“We are profusely thankful to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra who has taken a very disciplined and firm stand against these kinds of threats,” he said.

He added, “We are going to go ahead with the programme, we are not going to be deterred by these things.”

Kulkarni and Kasuri held a joint press conference following the incident, NDTV reported. The organiser welcome the former minister, thanking him for accepting the invitation.

Kasuri said he was unhappy about the attack on Kulkarni. Recognising the right of people to protest, he said as long as the protest was peaceful, it was justified but that what happened to Kulkarni was beyond that.

Kasuri reached Mumbai on Sunday for the last leg of his book release tour. His book ‘Neither a Hawk nor a Dove: An Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy’ will be launched at Mumbai’s Hall of Culture, Nehru Centre.

“My Indian sponsors say we should not chicken [out] before any threat by the Shiv Sena,” Kasuri told Dawn Newspaper.

“There are some 20 security men guarding me. I’m leaving it all to Allah.”

It has been revealed that Steve Jobs widow, Laurene Jobs, called Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale and begged them to stay away from the upcoming biopic about the controversial Apple CEO.

According to a source in the movie, Laurene had been trying to kill this movie since the very beginning. The 51-year-old widow called up Dicaprio and Bale and said, “Don’t do it”. However, Michael Fassbender accepted the role to play Jobs in the biopic.
Sources have revealed that Laurene also asked a major studio to back away from the project. Steve Jobs is all set to hit the theatres on October 9.

Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Friday accused the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party Government in Uttar Pradesh of manipulating the Dadri lynching case for self gain.

“The police are taking new names daily in the Dadri case, which is completely wrong. This shows the incompetence of the Uttar Pradesh Government and the state’s police,” Gandhi told media here.

“I know two boys who are nowhere related to this case, but their names are being dragged in this case,” she added.

Gandhi also said there was a law of the land, it should be followed by the state police.

“People behind this unfortunate incident need to be punished. But innocent people shouldn’t be targeted,” she added.

Hitting out at the state police, Gandhi said that if it has filed an FIR against unknown people it, had the leeway to threaten anyone.

“There is very cheap politics being politics being played U.P government and the police members,” she added.

In an apparent reference to the Dadri lynching incident, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had yesterday urged all not to make irresponsible statements for petty gains.

“I have said it earlier too. Hindus should decide whether to fight Muslims or poverty. Muslims have to decide whether to fight Hindus or poverty. Both need to fight poverty together. The country has to stay united, only communal harmony and brotherhood will take the nation forward. People should ignore controversial statements made by politicians, as they are doing so for political gains,” he said while referring to President Pranab Mukherjee’s statement to drive home his point.

​In a shocking incident, a man was spotted walking on the road with a severed head by a local constable in Katraj, near Pune on Friday.

The man named Ramchandra Chavan had a head in one hand an axe in the other. According to reports, 63-year-old Chavan has suspicions that his 60-year-old wife was having an affair with someone. He was enraged by the possibility of affair and beheaded his wife consequently

The accused, Chavan, who works as a watchman in a housing society in Katraj area, was taken into custody by police. According to the FIR, Ramu killed his 45-year-old wife, Sonubai, after suspecting an illicit relationship between her and their son-in-law.

The dhoti-clad man, who was accosted to the police station by constables, carried his wife’s head by holding on to the hair even as shocked bystanders watched on the street. He has been booked under IPC 302 (murder) and further investigations were underway, police added.

Senior Police Inspector, M Chavhan said, “He was taken into custody immediately. On investigation we found that Chavan worked as a watchman on a site in Katraj. He frequently quarrelled with his wife and though she neglected him. It was a case of household quarrel between a couple where Chavan lost his control and killed his wife using a knife.”

Chavan is said to have walked for a few minutes with the severed head until he was spotted by the constable. “The man did not have any mental disorders as investigated for now. He is taken into custody for murder and is being questioned further” he added.

Chavan and his wife lived with two sons, a daughter in law and two grand children in Katraj. The rest of the members are also being questioned.

Hardly in the spotlight for good reason, the Delhi Police’s Special Cell has been damned again in a new report that exhaustively investigates and details the cases of the many young men, mostly Muslim, detained by the agency on charges of terrorism only to be acquitted by court due to “fabricated” and “planted” evidence, procedural lapses and false cases. The Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association released the second edition of Framed, Damned, Acquitted, in New Delhi on Wednesday, where the organisation pointed out the blatant communal agenda of the police, which caused several young men to lose years of their lives; most of them from Kashmir, a few from the north eastern states.
The first edition of the report was released in 2012, with 16 cases documented. The new edition takes the cases up to 24, once again minutely examining court documents and judgments to show how exactly these trails in cases of terrorism accused fall apart under scrutiny.

Take for example, case number 22 of the report, State versus Md. Ameen Wani alias Khalid and Luthfur Rahman alias Haroon, in which the police claimed to have seized 1.5 kg of PETN, a highly explosive substance and stored it in their malkhana. The PETN was the crucial piece of evidence on which the accused guilt or innocence depended. When the court asked for it to be produced as evidence, the Special Cell replied that the malkhana had caught fire and in this fire, this material, one of the most powerful explosives known, had evaporated.

In case number 20, of Pervez Ahmed Radoo, a graduate in chemistry lost seven years to jail just when he was about to start his Ph.D. The police failed to present any mobile phone usage or call detail records during the time he was put under surveillance on the suspicion of being a Jaish-e-Mohammad member.

Witnesses for the prosecution have repeatedly failed to back up their stories under cross examination, with many later admitting the police made them sign blank sheets of paper, or that they had never seen the accused in the first place, as in case number 22, State versus Mohd. Iqbal and Mushtaq Ahmad Kallo.

When the first report came out in 2012, the police responded to the scathing attack on its competence and objectivity by saying that it was tough to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt in such cases, public witnesses did not come forward, and still the rate of conviction was high. This report demolishes these claims, by using court documents that have time and again indicted the Special Cell, saying that any effort to enlist independent witnesses “was omitted by the police deliberately”

It also pointed out that rarely were convictions under charges of terrorism. Sentences handed out by sessions courts, even for the death penalty had been overthrown by higher courts, and convictions, if at all, happened under other laws pertaining to, say, the Explosives Substances Act.

Speaking at the release, Bombay based advocate Yug Mohit Chaudhary pointed out that this behaviour was not limited to Delhi. The Mumbai police ATS, too, behaved similarly with young Muslim men arrested for Malegaon blasts and the 2006 train blasts. In the latter case, the CDR was a crucial bit of evidence that the police refused to present, until the High Court ordered it. Then it claimed to have destroyed the data. Chaudhary also pointed out the systematic hunting down of these men, as two of the boys who had been let off for Malegaon case, were picked up against by the same officer for the train blasts.

Human rights activist Ravi Nair and legal scholar Upendra Baxi too denounced the “communal and politicised” nature of the police, as the panelists pointed out the insidious section 197 of the CrPc, that protect these policemen from prosecution.The Special Cell members have, therefore, been safe from the consequences of their punitive reign, while their victims, who leave prison after years of physical and psychological damage, often in dire financial condition have never even been offered compensation by the state.

National Convener of AAP Preeti Sharma Menon, in Maharashtra has sent a press release for the media to publish, which Real News Of India obliges to publish the entire content.

The Shiv Sena Wednesday forced the cancellation of a concert by Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali, who was scheduled to perform at Mumbai’s Shanmukhananda Hall Friday as a tribute to Jagjit Singh on his fourth death anniversary. – See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/sena-protests-ghulam-alis-show-in-mumbai-opposes-cultural-relation-with-pakistan/#sthash.so6TEvjU.dpuf

Aam Aadmi Party exposes Shiv Sena’s hypocrisy & condemns CM Devendra Fadnavis’s failure to allow Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai

Home to Bollywood, India’s prolific movie industry, Mumbai is the capital of performing arts in India. The ruling BJP – Shiv Sena state government have put an unforgivable blot on Mumbai’s metropolitan, all inclusive nature by not allowing Ghulam Ali to perform in India.

Ghulam Ali Stands for Harmony

Ghulam Ali is an emblem of all that is good in India and Pakistan, he stands for the harmony that exists in our two countries, despite the hate spread by certain vested interests. He spreads the message of peaceful co-existence – “Diwali mein Ali aur Ramzan mein Ram”. It is an unspeakable shame that the state government is now promoting the elements of hate by cancelling his show in Mumbai. Aam Aadmi Party condemns this vicious divisiveness being spread by the BJP and Shiv Sena.

The Hypocrisy of Shiv Sena exposed

All of us have seen photographs of the Thackeray family with Pakistani cricketers. What is even more ironic in that on September 20th 2015 Aditya Thackeray spoke at event at Taj Land’s End in Mumbai where Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan performed. And today, less than 20 days later he gives statements that there can be no cultural ties with Pakistan. We request the media to ask Aditya Thackeray if it is okay for Pakistani artists to perform at private/corporate functions attended by the Thackeray family but not at shows where the common man can attend? This blatant hypocrisy goes to show that these bans & threats are only ploys used by Shiv Sena to divide people and appease their vote banks.

Morevoer, the Shiv Sena only has the courage to pick on soft targets like singers and artists. If it really had such serious issues with pro Pakistan elements, it should have raised its voice against the BJP PDP alliance in Jammu & Kashmir.

Who runs that state – Devendra Fadnavis or Uddhav Thackeray?

The AAP believes that this act of Shiv Sena has shown that the Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is incapable of leading a state. Why did the organizers of the show visit Uddhav Thackeray? Who is the Chief Minister of this state – Fadnavis or Thackeray? If the Chief Minister of Maharashtra does not have the courage and the wherewithal to ensure a peaceful concert, how will he ensure safety for the citizens? How will he promise safety for international businesses which he is allegedly wooing?

AAP stands for harmony, invites Ghulam Ali to perform in Delhi

The BJP Governments, both in the centre and the state, blame fringe elements for the dastardly attacks on the tolerant, secular fabric of India. But the reality is that these fringe elements are flourishing as they have the protection and support of the BJP government. The Aam Aadmi Party exhorts the people and the thought leaders of India to raise their voice against this divisive agenda of the BJP and its associates before they plunge the nation into complete anarchy and violence.

The AAP government in Delhi invites Ghulam Ali to perform in Delhi. We have immense respect for his talent, and his spirit of universal love and would like him to give India a chance to atone for the insult caused by the small minded, political opportunism of the Shiv Sena and BJP.

Taking a dig at an American media report that ‘India replaces China as next big frontier for the US tech companies’, an article in a state-run Chinese daily said India was “not even close” to where China was five years ago.

Commenting on the New York Times report that ‘India replaces China as next big frontier for US tech companies’ after meetings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping with the executives of US tech companies during their recent visits to the US, an article in the Global Times pointed to the inability of the BJP government to get the GST legislation through the Parliament.

“For instance, the states of India all have set their own varied taxes and multiple payments have to be made when commodities circulate between states. Unifying the taxes of commodities and services has been called on for years, but this is always blocked in the parliament. Even Modi cannot overcome this. In this circumstance, it is hard to forge ahead with developing an Internet economy,” the article said.

“The development of the Internet cannot be separated from the level of the overall economy. India’s Internet economy will not advance rapidly, let alone become the main driving force for India’s economy unless the country enhances the openness and competitiveness of its overall economy, integrates markets effectively, and builds a base for primary and intermediate manufacturing,” it said.

“If this cannot be done, Modi’s plan of making ‘Digital India’ will be just empty talk. From this perspective, India is not even close to where China was five years ago,” it said.

It is the development of China’s manufacturing that has laid a foundation for the rapid expansion of Internet economy, the daily said.

“Shopping online after all requires the provision of commodities. What India needs is an all-round and multi- layered manufacturing industry that can adapt to changes and be competitive,” it said.

“India lags behind China in the fields of manufacturing, logistics and infrastructure by more than five years. Apart from the hardware, the key actually lies in the integration and openness of markets and in this respect China is more accomplished than India,” it said.

“Undisputedly, India has huge potential in terms of population and Internet use. But the development of the Internet economy doesn’t solely depend on large population, and it is not decided simply by factors like the number of mobile phones in use and Internet surfers,” it said.

India has 243 million Internet users of which 35 million shop online. In China, the numbers were 649 million users and 361 million online shoppers.

“The data can prove that the number of Internet users is important for Internet economy, but is just one of the factors,” it said.

“To develop, the Internet economy cannot build castles in the air or take off regardless of a frail economic foundation.

It depends on the maturity of the market economy and the development of other sectors like business, finance, logistics, transport, manufacturing, Internet infrastructure and public education,” it added.

Two sets of human remains have been discovered in the Afghan presidential palace, a spokesman said on , rekindling memories of the bloody fate of some of the war-ravaged country’s leaders and their families.

A pair of skulls and other bones were discovered during construction work in the kitchen in one of the palaces of the presidential compound, an oasis of calm cut off from the choking traffic of Kabul by blast walls and a maze of pristine gardens.

Their identities, including gender, as well as the cause of the deaths were not immediately known, but a commission has been set up by President Ashraf Ghani to investigate.

“The president has tasked a commission of forensic experts and representatives of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission to examine the bodies and prepare them for proper burial in accordance with Islamic rites,” a statement said.

That quest could prove difficult given the fact that Afghanistan has been in a near-permanent state of war for the past 35 years.

From the struggle against Soviet occupation in the 1980s, through the civil war of the 1990s which was followed by five years of Taliban rule, to the militants’ present day insurgency, Afghanistan has grown accustomed to constant battles.

Several leaders met grisly ends throughout this turbulent period. When the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, one of their first acts was to string up the castrated corpse of former president Najibullah on a signpost. He was later buried in the eastern province of Paktia.

Burial rites were denied to the country’s first president Mohammad Daud Khan, who was assassinated in a coup d’etat in 1978 along with 18 members of his family in the presidential palace. His body was discovered in a mass grave in 2008 along with 15 other victims of the massacre, and was reburied in 2009.

Daud Khan himself seized power in a 1973 coup that deposed his cousin, King Zahir Shah, to proclaim the first republic.