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26/11 Mumbai attack: Delhi court allows Tahawwur Rana 3 phone calls with kin

26/11 Mumbai attack: Delhi court allows Tahawwur Rana 3 phone calls with kin

Indian Express2 days ago
A Delhi court on Wednesday allowed 26/11 Mumbai attack accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana to have three phone calls this month with his brother to discuss engaging a private counsel, court sources said.
Special judge Chander Jit Singh also extended the judicial custody of Rana till September 8 after the accused appeared virtually, they added.
According to the sources, the judge during the in-chamber proceeding said the phone calls by Rana will be recorded and the conversations will have to be in English or Hindi in the presence of prison authorities.
Legal aid counsel Piyush Sachdeva was stated to have sought time from the court to scrutinise certain documents in the chargesheet and supplementary chargesheet.
Rana is allegedly a close associate of 26/11 main conspirator David Coleman Headley, alias Daood Gilani, a US citizen.
He was brought to India after the US Supreme Court on April 4 dismissed his review plea against his extradition to India.
On November 26, 2008, a group of 10 Pakistani terrorists went on a rampage, carrying out attacks on a railway station, two luxury hotels, and a Jewish centre, sneaking into India's financial capital through the sea route.
A total of 166 people were killed in the assault that lasted for nearly 60 hours.
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Judge strikes down parts of Florida law used to remove books from schools
Judge strikes down parts of Florida law used to remove books from schools

Business Standard

time5 minutes ago

  • Business Standard

Judge strikes down parts of Florida law used to remove books from schools

A federal judge has struck down key parts of a Florida law that helped parents get books they found objectionable removed from public school libraries and classrooms. It is a victory for publishers and authors who had sued after their books were removed. US District Judge Carlos Mendoza in Orlando said in Wednesday's ruling that the statute's prohibition on material that described sexual conduct was overbroad. Mendoza, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, also said that the state's interpretation of the 2023 law was unconstitutional. Among the books that had been removed from central Florida schools were classics like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Richard Wright's Native Son and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Historically, librarians curate their collections based on their sound discretion not based on decrees from on high, the judge said. There is also evidence that the statute has swept up more non-obscene books than just the ones referenced here." After the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature passed the law, school officials worried that any sexual content was questionable, a belief that was enforced by new state training that urged librarians to err on the side of caution. Last year, Florida led the nation with 4,500 removals of school books. Under the judge's ruling, schools should revert back to a US Supreme Court precedent in which the test is whether an average person would find the work prurient as a whole; whether it depicts sexual content in an offensive way; and whether the work lacks literary, artistic, political or scientific value. The lawsuit was brought by some of the nation's largest book publishers and some of the authors whose books had been removed from central Florida school libraries, as well as the parents of schoolchildren who tried to access books that were removed. The author plaintiffs included Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give"; Jodi Picoult, author of My Sister's Keeper"; John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars"; and Julia Alvarez, author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. The publisher plaintiffs included Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishing and Simon and Schuster.

Derek O'Brien writes: 79 suggestions for the Union government on 79th I-Day
Derek O'Brien writes: 79 suggestions for the Union government on 79th I-Day

Indian Express

time35 minutes ago

  • Indian Express

Derek O'Brien writes: 79 suggestions for the Union government on 79th I-Day

As India celebrates its 79th Independence Day, here are 79 suggestions for the Union government. Unemployment 1. Reduce unemployment. Eight out of 10 unemployed are youth. 2. Create jobs for the youth. Youth unemployment is over 15 per cent. 3. Introduce urban employment guarantee schemes. 4. Increase wages of rural workers— real average annual growth is just 0.2 per cent. 5. Increase the female Labour Force Participation Rate. Among youth, this is around half that of men. 6. Boost skill training. Only 4 per cent of the youth workforce have formal vocational training. Health 7. Remove 18 per cent GST on health and life insurance. 8. Increase spending on public healthcare, currently less than 2 per cent of GDP. 9. Strengthen AIIMS. Over 18,000 positions are vacant in AIIMS hospitals. 10. Provide free medical and psychological treatment for acid attack survivors. Education 11. Restart discontinued minority scholarship schemes like the Maulana Azad National Fellowship. 12. 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Stop using the ED as a political weapon. Its conviction rate is 0.25 per cent. 27. Stop Hindi imposition. 28. Give full statehood to J&K. 29. Stop squeezing non-BJP states for funds. Bengal alone is owed over Rs 15,000 crore under MGNREGA and PMAY-G. Policy 30. Admit demonetisation was a failure. 31. Roll back Agnipath and bring back permanent recruitment in the Armed Forces. 32. Introduce a framework to reduce financial frauds, which increased by 97 per cent between 2020 and 2024. 33. Introduce a national elder care policy with support services and pension. 34. Ensure a five-year cooling-off period before retired judges can take up any other constitutional post. 35. Increase the judiciary's strength. Over five crore cases are pending across courts. 36. Delink MGNREGS payment from Aadhaar, which makes over 28 per cent of MGNREGS workers ineligible. 37. Strengthen RTI and include institutions like PM CARES under its purview. 38. Improve data privacy. The DPDP rules have not been framed. More than 81 crore citizens' data was leaked in 2023. 39. Improve press freedom, in which India is ranked 161 out of 180. 40. Strengthen the Armed Forces. There are 1.09 lakh vacancies in paramilitary forces. 41. Strengthen banking access. One in five Jan Dhan accounts is inactive. 42. Increase PM Kisan funds to Rs 12,000 43. Stop manual scavenging. Between 2014 and 2023, 736 people died cleaning sewers and septic tanks. 44. Reduce plastic pollution. 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated each year. 45. Build dedicated legislation for AI. Do not wait to take the cue from other countries. 46. Withdraw the SIR exercise in Bihar. 47. Implement a national bail reform policy to reduce the undertrial population. 48. Conduct the census, due since 2021, in 2026 instead of 2027. 49. Standardise gig/contract worker rights, including social security. 50. Increase the wages of MGNREGS and ASHA workers. Economy 51. Reduce poverty. Four out of five people earn less than Rs 171 a day. 52. Improve GDP growth, which was at a four-year low in 2024-25. 53. Increase value added by manufacturing. Manufacturing GVA was at 4.5 per cent in FY 2025, lower than FY 2013. 54. Reduce agriculture household debt. The average outstanding loan per agricultural household is over Rs 74,000. 55. Strengthen MSMEs. Between 2020 and February 2025, over 75,000 MSMEs were shut down. 56. Boost industrial growth, which in June was at its lowest in 10 months. 57. Create high-value jobs. Forty-six per cent of the workforce is in agriculture. 58. Reduce household indebtedness. Household savings touched a 50-year low in 2022-23. 59. Reduce per capita external debt, which rose by 132 per cent in 2014-2025. Infrastructure 60. Develop air connectivity. Of 619 routes operationalised under UDAN, only half are currently operational. 61. Improve internet access. Over 21,200 villages don't have internet connections. 62. Expand expressways. Twenty-five per cent of Bharatmala project isn't yet awarded. 63. Boost railway safety. There are over one lakh vacancies in the railways. 64. Expand KAVACH. In four years, it was installed in just 2 per cent of rail routes. 65. Ensure road safety. About half of unnatural and untimely deaths are due to road accidents. 66. Improve infrastructure. Work for only eight per cent of Amrit Bharat stations has been completed. Parliament 67. Give more time to the Opposition. Seventy per cent is used by the government. 68. Appoint a deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha. The post has been vacant since 2019. 69. Have a fixed parliamentary calendar with a minimum 100 days of sittings. 70. Stop bulldozing bills. The 500-plus-page Income Tax Bill was passed in under five minutes in the Lok Sabha this week. 71. Stop mass suspension of MPs — 146 were suspended in one session in 2023. Bad Laws 72. Repeal CAA. 73. Ban anti-conversion laws. 74. Scrap sedition and the UAPA law, which has a conviction rate under 3 per cent. 75. Repeal the Waqf (Amendment) Act. 76. Criminalise marital rape. For the Prime Minister 77. Answer a question in Parliament. 78. Hold a press conference. 79. Visit Manipur The writer is MP and leader, All India Trinamool Congress Parliamentary Party. Research credit: Ayashman Dey, Chahat Mangtani, Dheemunt Jain, Varnika Mishra

79th Independence Day Celebration Live: PM Modi greets nation on Independence Day; to deliver his address from ramparts of Red Fort
79th Independence Day Celebration Live: PM Modi greets nation on Independence Day; to deliver his address from ramparts of Red Fort

Time of India

time36 minutes ago

  • Time of India

79th Independence Day Celebration Live: PM Modi greets nation on Independence Day; to deliver his address from ramparts of Red Fort

15 Aug 2025 | 06:47:49 AM IST PM Modi Independence Day Speech Live: India is celebrating its 79th Independence Day 2025 on Friday, 15th August. Known in Hindi as Swatantrata Diwas, this historic day marks the nation's freedom from over two centuries of British colonial rule, achieved on 15th August 1947. Every year, the day is observed with great pride and patriotic fervour across the part of the tradition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the PM Speech from the historic Red Fort in Delhi. This will be PM Modi's 12th consecutive Independence Day speech and his second address since being re-elected for a third consecutive term. PM Modi Independence Day Speech Live: India is celebrating its 79th Independence Day 2025 on Friday, 15th August. Known in Hindi as Swatantrata Diwas, this historic day marks the nation's freedom from over two centuries of British colonial rule, achieved on 15th August 1947. Every year, the day is observed with great pride and patriotic fervour across the schools and colleges to government offices, the day will begin with the hoisting of the Tricolour, followed by cultural programmes, patriotic songs, and inspiring speeches. Streets, markets, and homes are adorned with saffron, white, and green, reflecting the colours of the national part of the tradition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the PM Speech from the historic Red Fort in Delhi. This will be PM Modi's 12th consecutive Independence Day speech and his second address since being re-elected for a third consecutive PM Speech on Independence Day 2025 is more than a ceremonial address — it sets the tone for the government's vision, policies, and priorities for the year ahead. It often includes major announcements on development projects, welfare schemes, national security, and economic growth. Show more

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