A building that was being constructed illegally in a Mumbai suburb has collapsed, killing at least 27 people. Over 50 have been injured.

Police Inspector Digamber Jangale said 54 people were injured in the collapse Thursday (04-Apr-2013) evening in the Mumbai suburb of Thane. Rescuers were searching for more casualties in the debris early Friday.

He said the building did not have clearances from local authorities to be built. The first four floors had residences and offices that were occupied at the time of the collapse.

Most of the dead were construction workers who were staying in the building, Mr. Jangale said. The condition of at least 10 of the injured was serious.

The cause of the collapse wasn't immediately known. Police have arrested the builder and his associate.

The injured were admitted to various hospitals including Thane Civil, CSM Civic hospital at Kalwa, Kalsekar hospital in Kalwa, while those in critical condition were shifted to Sion and JJ Hospital.

Several people remain trapped under the debris and the rescue operations still continue.

The editor of a television channel, which first aired the video of a mob molesting a teenage girl in India's northeastern Assam state, has resigned over the broadcast.

The arrests are slowly adding up - too slowly to matter, really. A week after a TV camera in Guwahati filmed a young woman being attacked, groped, pulled back from the road that she tried to race down, 11 of the 30 people who assaulted her have been arrested.

Meanwhile, Atanu Bhuyan, the Editor-in-Chief of News Live, the channel that filmed the Guwahati molestation incident, resigned on Tuesday (17-July-2012) afternoon.

Atanu Bhuyan said he was under "huge mental pressure for the last few days".

Addressing a press conference at the Guwahati Press Club, the editor-in-chief, Atanu Bhuyan, said he was surprised at chief minister Tarun Gogoi's comment yesterday (16-July-2012) criticising journalist Gaurav Jyoti Neog for not informing the police.

"After Gogoi's comment, Neog was picked up by the police and interrogated for four hours before being released. We fear the enquiry will not be impartial as the police may be influenced by Gogoi's comment," he said.

Close on the heels of molestation of a girl in Guwahati that generated national outcry, a teenager met the same fate allegedly at the hands of army jawans in Assam's Sibsagar district, police said on Saturday (14-July-2012).

A team of Army personnel headed by Lance Naik were on patrol duty near a forest in Dolopa where they spotted a teenaged girl collecting firewood, Sibsagar additional superintendent of police S K Dutta said.

When Naik and his team allegedly tried to molest her in the forest, the girl created a furore which was heard by the nearby local villagers who rushed to the spot and managed to free the girl from the armymen clutches, Police said.

Army sources, when contacted, said that there was no information on the matter with them.

The area is flood prone and militant-infested for which the camp of the Army was set up.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi gave police a 48-hour deadline to arrest all the youths involved in the molesation of a girl in Guwahati even as raids were conducted today (14-July-2012) in the hunt for 12 more wanted men including a government employee, a prime accused.

A controversy also broke out over the video footage of the incident with RTI activist Akhil Gogoi alleging that a journalist who filmed it on Monday (09-July-2012) night had 'instigated' it, a charge rejected as baseless by a local TV channel concerned and condemned by scribe bodies.

The Guwahati incident is no one-off. Urban India has witnessed several cases of women becoming mob targets.

Police have failed to make any breakthrough and arrest any of the seven other culprits from the group that publicly molested and stripped a teenage girl in this main city of Assam last Monday, officials said on Saturday. The incident created a country-wide furore after the video clip of it was telecast.

The 17-year-old had gone to a pub with another girl Monday night. She was looking for an auto-rickshaw when 11 men pounced on her. The other girl escaped. A video clip of the girl being molested was caught on camera and went viral on the net. It caused outrage.

Bollywood condemns Guwahati molestation

The recent Guwahati molestation case has enraged Bollywood celebrities who have come forward to condemn the act, calling for punishment for the culprits.

Here's what the B-town celebs had to say in social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook:

Amitabh Bachchan: Horrid visuals on TV of molestation of young girl... but just a point. How does TV crew know of it live and why don't they intervene?

Bipasha Basu: Guwahati molestation of a 17-year-old girl for 29 minutes on the road! Shameful! These monsters have to be punished!

Anupam Kher: My country gives me millions of reasons to be a proud Indian. But it also makes me feel ashamed to be one on many occasions.

Shekhar Kapur: As a society we must take collective responsibility for Guwahati for making incidents like this acceptable and rampant. Constant bombarding of female image as mere object of sexual titillation is bound to alter perception of the immature male. Physical abuse of women and even rape is not a sexual act, but act of humiliation and power by male lacking in self worth.

Farhan Akhtar: Guwahati pathetic! Shameful! Indian women better realise that they are on their own.

Actor Rahul Bose said he was sickened by the incident. "Saddened to the point of despair that none came to her rescue. How much more violence against women must we see before we realise it will end civilisation as we know it. What makes men silent onlookers to such carnage? what delight in seeing a 17-year-old girl brutalised?."

A woman being molested on the streets of Guwahati earlier this week was aired on Thursday (12-July-2012) by a couple of local and national news channels, prompting Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to announce the setting up of a task force to prevent crimes against women.

In an outrageous incident, a teenaged girl was assaulted, stripped and molested outside a pub in Guwahati by a mob of over 20 men for nearly half an hour on Monday (09-July-2012) night.

A Class 11 student was molested outside a pub in Guwahati by a group of nearly 20 men on Monday night. The shameful act continued for nearly 30 minutes till the police arrived and rescued the girl and handed her over to her parents.

The police have arrested four accused including Assam government’s IT agency Amtron’s employee Amar Jyoti Kalita. Kalita maintains a Facebook account and studied at Guwahati Refinery High School.

Two of his accomplices Bubul Das, a local businessman, and Jiarul Choudhury, a video librarian, are also Facebook users.

In Assam, the rate of crime against women is a shocking 36.9 per lakh, almost double the national average at 18.9. The young teen's sickening molestation on Monday could well have been another number added to that statistic had it not been for the video shot by the night reporter of a local TV channel, Newslive, which was uploaded on YouTube and went viral. The arrests were made on Thursday, after that happened.

A massive earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale rocked Indonesia on Wednesday (11-Apr-2012) afternoon. Indonesia's geophysical agency issued tsunami warning following the quake whose epicentre was in Aceh. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued Indian Ocean-wide tsunami warning. Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity. Tremors were also felt in Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Patna and several other cities on the eastern coast of India, according to reliable sources. India also issued tsunami warning for Nicobar Islands following massive earthquake off Sumatra coast.

Obituaries are being written about Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement. Two core Team Anna members, PV Rajagopal and Rajinder Singh, have quit or moved away.

Barely three months after it gained country-wide name as Team Anna, an anti-corruption movement it is spearheading suffered a blow on Tuesday (18-Oct-2011) as these two key associates of Gandhain activist Anna Hazare quit the core committee of his team objecting to the movement taking a political turn.

The trigger was the group's decision to unleash an anti-Congress campaign in Hisar, which the two claimed had not been taken by the core committee.

"I dissociate with the team. The team is turning political. There were statements indicating that including the on Hisar," Rajinder Singh said.

Rajagopal, who is in Kerala`s Attappadi as part of an all-India yatra for land rights, wrote to Core Committee convenor Arvind Kejriwal about his decision while Singh said he did not feel the need to write any such letter as he had not sought any membership in the first place.

Both Singh, and Rajagopal had joined the anti-graft team after some persuasion and their presence in the team was seen as a counter to the allegation that Team Anna represented a very small section of civil society.

In an act of cold-blooded murder, a bus driver Wednesday (05-Oct-2011) ordered tourists to de-board and then ran the vehicle over them in Rajasthan, killing seven people including a girl, police said.

Ten others were injured in the incident, which occurred at college road this morning in Karauli, 160 kms from Jaipur. All the victims were from Agra, Superintendent of Police Omprakash said.

The passengers, who were on their way to Keladevi temple, had an argument with the driver (identified as Raju) of the private bus plying between Jaipur-Hindaun over fare.

The injured have been admitted to a nearby hospital, the police said, adding that the matter was under investigation.

The driver is absconding. A case has been registered against him under different sections including for 302 (murder) of IPC, Mr. Omprakash said.

Expressing happiness over meeting his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar at a reception in New York on Tuesday (27-Sep-2011), External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said such social exchanges would go a long way in normalising relations with the neighbouring country.

Asserting that there cannot be a "selective approach" in the fight against terrorism, India today hoped that Pakistan will be "serious" in dismantling terror camps on its soil and live up to its pronouncements.

"I am sure they (Pakistan) will realise and they have, by now they should have (realised) that terrorism cannot be fought selectively," external affairs minister SM Krishna said after meeting his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar at a reception hosted by her here.

In a series of media interviews, Hina Rabbani Khar has challenged the US to share with Pakistan any evidence it might have about Pakistani involvement with the militants.

She has highlighted the sacrifices Pakistan has made in the fight against terror.

At the outset, the foreign minister praised Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon for his excellent work in the service of his country, saying she found him to be the most popular envoy here. Diplomats and journalists especially noted the presence of Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, who came to the reception with his UN ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri.

Last year Pakistan voted for India when it won a non-permanent seat. In her speech, Khar reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to multilateralism and the principles and purposes enshrined in the UN Charter as she focused on her country’s role in the the peacekeeping missions around the world, the world body’s flagship activity.

Indian envoy to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri had earlier said that the "possibility" of a meeting between Krishna and Khar in a social set-up "is very likely."

Krishna recalled that Khar had mentioned during her visit to New Delhi in July this year that her country too was a victim of terrorism.

Replying to a question that US too is talking in the same voice as India on the terror network in Pakistan, Krishna said terrorism has to be fought across the board and not in a selective manner.

An explosion rocked a private hospital in Agra on Saturday (17-Sep-2011), leaving six persons injured. The blast took place in the reception of Jai Hospital where explosives were kept under a chair, said Inspector General of Police, Agra Range, PK Tiwari.

Police called it a crude explosive, but it was still too early to determine a motive or whether it was the handiwork of terrorists.

The Home Ministry said it had dispatched commandos to Agra and was in the process of collecting evidence from the scene.

"It was an explosion with a bang when I was getting down the stairs and when I turned back, there was panic all around," said an eye witness.

An team from the anti-terror squad has been sent to the hospital, Additional Director General of Police (Law & Order) Brij Lal told PTI.

The motive behind the blast is yet to be discovered, said Agra zone deputy inspector general of police Asim Arun. The police and administration is looking after the victims and all possible help is being extended, he added.

Five days after he was rushed to a Hyderabad hospital after a road accident, Ayazuddin, son of former cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin, has died.

The 19-year-old, a budding cricketer, breathed his last in Apollo Hospital this morning (16-Sep-2011) after fighting for his life for six days.

Ayaz was seriously injured in a motobike crash on Sunday (11-Sep-2011) last on the Outer Ring Road of Hyderabad and his condition was very critical since then.

A promising cricketer, Aiyazuddin was a second year B.Com student and was the younger of Azharuddin's two sons with his former wife, Naureen.

Ayazuddin's cousin, Ajmal-ur-Rahman (16) who was riding pillion, succumbed to his injuries while undergoing treatment.

Azharuddin was out of the country when the accident happened.

Petrol prices were hiked for the 10th time since June 2010, by a little over Rs.3.14 a litre from Friday (15-Sep-2011), as India's oil retailers sought to pass most of the burden of the falling value of the rupee and high crude prices on to consumers.

The increase in petrol price is the latest after a record 5 rupee hike in May 2011. Petrol prices vary from city to city depending on VAT and other local levies.

Oil companies in India have been free since June 2010 to set their own prices for petrol, which is considered a rich person's fuel. Raising the petrol price is politically easier than lifting state-controlled diesel prices, which New Delhi did in June after months of delay.

The recent depreciation of the rupee, which has fallen nearly 8 percent from its 2011 high, adds to the subsidy burden for oil marketing companies.

Petrol price were freed from the government control in June last year but the retail rates have not moved in line with cost as high inflation rate forced the oil companies to seek 'advice' from parent oil ministry before revising rates.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was today (12-Sep-2011) asked by the Supreme Court to appear personally on October 20 before a Karnataka trial court, adjudicating a disproportionate assets case against her.

Rejecting Jayalalithaa's earlier plea for grant of exemption from personal appearance, an apex court bench had on September 5 observed that she was trying to delay proceedings. Jayalalithaa had sought exemption from personal appearance for recording her statement under Section 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code on grounds of threat to her security.

She will appear before the court Oct 20. Jayalalithaa faces charges for accumulating wealth disproportionate to known sources of income when she was the chief minister from 1991 to 1996.

The case was transferred from Chennai to Bangalore.

A bench of justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma, however, left it to the trial court judge to decide her plea for being examined at a separate building, other than the regular court, in view of security considerations.

The apex court said the presiding judge shall ensure that she is examined in a proper environment.

Ayazuddin, the youngest son of former Indian cricket captain and Congress MP Mohammad Azharuddin, is in a serious condition after crashing his motorcycle. He was riding with his cousin Ajmal-ur-Rahman (16) who died after being admitted to a city hospital.

Update: Ayazuddin is dead

Ajmal-ur-Rahman, nephew of former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin, died in Hyderabad while the cricketer's son Mohammed Ayazuddin is fighting for his life after an accident early Sunday (11-Sep-2011), police said.

According to Rajendra Nagar police, Ayazuddin, who is studying for his B.Com, was reportedly riding a sports bike when he met with the accident on Outer Ring Road near Narsingh toll gate. Ajmal was the pillion rider.

Ayazuddin and Ajmal were rushed to Apollo Hospital in Jubliee Hills around 9 a.m. Both received head injuries, hospital sources told IANS.

"In medical terms, they had both gone into a state of cardiac arrest. In spite of our best efforts we could not revive Ajmal. Aiyazuddin has suffered serious injuries on his head, chest and abdomen and is at present undergoing surgery. His condition is very very critical. We are trying our best to resuscitate him," Dr Joshi said. Ajmal-ur-Rehman is son of former Congress Rajya Sabha MP Khalil-ur-Rehman who passed away in January this year.

Mr. Azharuddin, who was away in London, is rushing back to Hyderabad. His relatives and friends including Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, reached the hospital.

Ayazuddin is the younger of Azharuddin's two sons from his first wife, Naureen. Both he and Asaduddin, the elder son, are cricketers.

Scientists in South Africa say they have discovered a potential missing link in the evolutionary chain, after they claim to have found the fossilised remains of our earliest ancestors.

The ancient remains of two human-like creatures found in South Africa could change the way we view our origins.

Humans are thought to have descended from a creature called Homo erectus, which lived more than a million years ago, and it in turn was descended from more primitive species.

Palaeontologists have unearthed the remains of a primitive ape-like creature which they believe could be the man's earliest ancestor that lived almost two million years ago.

The hominin, named Australopithecus sediba, was discovered in a cave in South Africa and has been dubbed the "missing link" between apes and humans.

From head to toe, the bones reveal an unexpected patchwork of primitive and advanced traits, the researchers reported in the journal Science. The tiny skulls, long arms and diminutive bodies were all chimp-like; yet the hands, ankles and pelvis were surprisingly modern.

After examining A. sediba's anatomy, for instance, scientists think they may have evidence that the species was capable of making and using tools.

In addition, the team thinks it may have found samples of fossilized skin. If confirmed, the discovery would mark the first time any type of soft tissue has been recovered from an early human ancestor.

Uranium lead dating of the flowstone, conducted by the University of Melbourne, combined with palaeomagnetic analysis of sediments surrounding the fossils, conducted by La Trobe University, provide the tightly constrained new age.

The team was able to pin down the age of the fossils to within 3000 years of 1.98 million years, a massive advance on the age range of around 200,000 years from the 2010 estimate.

Scientists analysed the brain, pelvis, hands and feet of the Australopithecus sediba that existed around the same time when early Homo species first began to appear on the earth. The analysis shows that Australopithecus sediba had 'mosaic' nature of the hominin's features.

Whatever the correctness of the analysis, the creature certainly has a fascinating mix of features - some archaic, some modern.

Independent scientists describe the fossils as exquisite and utterly fascinating.

At least 10 people have been killed and 65 others injured in a bomb blast outside the Delhi High Court on Wednesday (07-Sept-2011) morning.

Confirming the toll, home minister P Chidambaram in his statement in Parliament severely condemned the bomb blast that killed at least nine people outside the Delhi high court.

Terming the blast as a terrorist attack, Chidambaram said it was not possible at this stage to identify the terrorists who exploded the bomb outside the court.

The blast, from a sophisticated explosive device, had a precursor just four months ago – on May 25 – when a low-intensity bomb had gone off in the same area, though outside a different gate.

Police officials said the bomb went off at 10.15 am outside gate 5 which was jampacked with visitors waiting for entry passes.

Local police said no one had claimed responsibility for the incident, but security officials suspected that the Indian Mujahideen, a home-grown extremist network, could have carried out the strike.

Rajya Sabha MP and former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and two former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs were Tuesday (06-Sep-2011) arrested and sent to judicial custody for alleged involvement in the cash-for-votes scandal during the July 2008 trust vote in Parliament.

Amar Singh is the latest in a long line of high profile politicians and corporate honchos to be housed in the sprawling prison complex in west Delhi.

Singh was denied bail by a Delhi court today (06-Sep-2011) and remanded in judicial custody till September 19. Two former BJP MPs Faggan Kulaste and Mahavir Bhagora were also arrested and sent to judicial custody in cash-for-vote case.

The crime branch of Delhi police has named Singh in an 80-page chargesheet as the person who was instrumental for distribution of Rs 1 crore to Kulaste and Bhagotra to abstain from voting with BJP members in July 2008 on a confidence motion moved by the Manmohan Singh government.

Jayalalithaa has made good on one of the major promises of her election campaign - she has made cable television available in Tamil Nadu through a government service.

For Rs 70, customers will be able to get 90 channels. Most private operators charge double that for similar services.

The Tamil Nadu government revived the dormant State-run cable TV service by formally launching its operations on Friday (02-Sep-2011).

The ACTVC was the brainchild of the previous DMK government which set it up in 2007 at the height of a feud between the families of then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and his grand nephews Dyananidhi Maran and Kalanidhi Maran.

The move then was seen as an attempt by Karunanidhi to cut to size the Marans whose Sumangali Cable Vision dominated the cable TV business. But later both patched up ahead of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, leaving the Arasu Cable TV Corporation in limbo.

Giving fresh life to the Arasu Cable TV Corporation to fulfill the AIADMK’s poll promise, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa said, with mentioning names, “one particular family” was enjoying monopoly over the cable TV business.

While the cable network operators are relieved that the new government-owned multi-system operator (MSO) will break the domination of private operators in the cable TV market, they are wondering what to tell customers as some popular pay channels will not be part of the bouquet.

Arasu Cable will operate in all districts except Chennai, which is expected to get the licence for conditional access system.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a case stating that yoga icon Baba Ramdev and his trust have violated foreign exchange laws.

There is trouble for Baba Ramdev. The Enforcement Directorate has finally found evidence of FEMA violations in two of his trusts - Divya Yog Mandir Trust and Patanjali Ayurveda Ltd.

Ramdev's castle on Scotland's The Little Cumbrae Island, is also being investigated. The island off the fishing town of Largs in Scotland, serves as Ramdev's base overseas and also as a wellness centre.

The ED is verifying the holding patterns and other details of the companies through the Registrar of Companies (RoC) and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

However, Ved Pratap Vaidik, a close associate of Ramdev, said the case has been filed because of "vendetta and revenge".

"The timing of the case is suspect. If the government had all this information, why did they not file a case earlier," Vaidik told reporters.

The case has been registered under the Foreign Exchange Managment Act (FEMA), official sources added.

Senkodi, 27, a woman member of a Tamil chauvinist group died on her way to hospital within two hours after her self-immolation outside a government office in Kanchipuram, police said.

The campaign to seek commutation of the death sentences of three convicts in former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination turned tragic on Sunday (28-Aug-2011) with a woman setting herself afire to allegedly press for the demand, according to a letter recovered from her.

P. Senkodi died within two hours after she set herself on fire. She emptied two litres of petrol from a bottle before setting herself ablaze.

Police sources said eyewitnesses had noticed a young woman, dressed in a salwar kameez, walking into the office around 5.45 p.m. Minutes later, they heard a woman's cries and rushed to the spot and noticed her engulfed in a ball of fire. Residents and the skeleton staff of government offices, including the police and fire stations, put out the fire. A government ambulance stationed nearby rushed her to the Government General Hospital, where she succumbed to injuries around 7.30 p.m.

Police sources said Senkodi was completely charred above her waist and her chances of survival were slim when she was brought to the hospital.

Elsewhere in Tamil Nadu various Tamil groups have launched fast demanding the commutation of the death penalty to the Rajiv assassins.

Kancheepuram police recovered a suicide note from Senkodi in which she urged Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to take a humane view and release the three convicts, who have already spent 21 years in jail. “If my life can save their three lives I will die happily’” she had said in the note.

The process to hold their death sentences was set in motion on Friday (26-Aug-2011) with the Vellore Prison authorities receiving the communication from Rashtrapathi Bhavan that the president has rejected the clemency petition filed by the three LTTE activists.

Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated while proceeding to an election meeting in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991.

The three convicts, along with 23 others, who stood trial in the case, were sentenced to death by the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act Court-1, Poonamallee on January 28, 1998.

The mercy petitions of the three were rejected by President Pratibha Patil earlier this month, 11 years after they were filed, and the Union Home Ministry has notified her decision to the Tamil Nadu government. Of the three, Murugan and Santhan are Sri Lankan Tamils.