New Delhi: Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh Tuesday said the elephant would soon be declared a national heritage animal in order to step up measures for its protection.

"We will soon declare elephant as a national heritage animal as they have been part of our heritage since ages. We need to give same degree of importance to elephant as is given to tiger in order to protect the big animal," said Ramesh.

The Elephant Task Force Tuesday submitted its report to the ministry. It lays out a comprehensive action agenda for protecting elephants in the wild and in captivity, and for addressing human-elephant conflict.

Srinagar: With an 11-year-old boy being killed in police firing and another critically injured, tensions have spiralled in the Kashmir Valley prompting authorities on Tuesday to impose curfew in this summer capital and other towns.

Irshad Ahmad Parray, 11, was killed when a huge mob of stone pelters attacked the Sherbagh police post in Anantnag town Monday evening after which security forces fired rubber bullets at the protesters.

With Parray's death, the number of people who have lost their lives in the ongoing unrest which started here June 11 has risen to 65. “Curfew has been imposed in Srinagar city, Anantnag and Pulwama towns while restrictions will remain in place in some areas close to

Mumbai: The storm over China’s denial of a visa to an Indian general serving in Jammu & Kashmir may be only a “diversionary sideshow” compared to another far more serious development — the “effective control” by the Chinese army of large swathes of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), strategic analysts said.

“A large tract of territory in PoK is now under the effective control of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA),” a Singapore-based analyst who returned recently from Afghanistan said on the condition of anonymity.

The development holds “enormous significance” for India’s security interests on its north-western border, far more than the “storm in a Chinese tea-cup” over China’s denial of a visa

New Delhi: The number of Indians on Interpol's wanted list has swollen to over 650.

The global crime monitoring organisation has issued 656 red-alert notices against Indians or people of Indian origin in the past five years, generally for crimes committed in countries other than India.

A red alert or red corner notice obliges immigration and police forces of all member countries to arrest the concerned person and inform the authorities in his home country, or the country where the crime was committed.

Interpol is the world's largest international police organisation, with 188 member countries.

Chennai: Asserting that education cannot be allowed to become a "money-spinning enterprise", Home Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday said the Centre would bring forward bills in Parliament to regulate the private sector in the field of education.

Chidambaram said as education for children is uppermost in the minds of every Indian family, it had led to mushrooming of institutions, "which cannot be avoided in this transition."
"But we cannot allow them to become money-spinners and education a money-spinning enterprise," he said in his address at the Loyola World Alumni Congress 2010 here.

New Delhi: Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad was shot at point-blank range by the Andhra Pradesh Police and not in an encounter, news-magazine 'Outlook' has claimed.

"The post-mortem conducted on the body of Maoist leader Azad categorically establishes that he was killed at close range with a handgun in a fake encounter by the Andhra Pradesh Police on July 1 at Adilabad," Outlook magazine claimed in a report.

It claimed to have accessed the post-mortem report of Azad on which it sought the opinion of three experts in three different cities.

"Three leading forensic medicine and wound ballistic experts, who were given copies of

Bangalore: NR Rohan Murthy, son of Infosys Technologies Ltd chairman NR Narayana Murthy and Sudha Murthy will soon marry Lakshmi, daughter of TVS Motor Company chairman Venu Srinivasan and Mallika Srinivasan."Yes, Rohan had proposed to Lakshmi on Thursday in Chennai and the latter had consented. They have known each other for over six months and have been in touch regularly since then," Murthy told a news agency here.

New Delhi: Delhi on Saturday got a spanking new world-class Rs. 9,000 crore airport that will integrate domestic and international operations and is expected to handle 34 million passengers annually.

The new terminal, Terminal 3 (T3), said to be the sixth largest in the world, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who said the Indian aviation sector has the potential to observe upto $120 billion of investment by 2020.

UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit were among the dignitaries present on the occasion to dedicate T3 built by GMR group backed developer Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL).

Margao, Goa: Ex-Goa Tourism Minister Fransisco Mickey Pacheco has surrendered before Sessions Court in Margao in connection with the Nadia Torrado death case.

"Pacheco will make himself available to the Crime Branch tomorrow morning," his lawyer Amit Palekar said.

Palekar had said Pacheco's former officer on special duty, Lyndon Monteiro, has been

Hyderbad: TRS MP and film actress Vijayasanthi was today arrested on charges of making inflammatory remarks during a recent party meeting.

Banaraja Hills police had registered a case against her for allegedly making inflammatory remarks while addressing an election meeting of party workers at the TRS office here on Wednesday.