General Singh was assigned to receive leaders representing the planet's two superpowers -- the president of the United States and the premier of the People's Republic of China.

Yakub Memon, who was convicted for helping finance the serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993 in which 257 people were killed, was hanged at the Nagpur Central Jail on Thursday morning shortly before 7am.

Rediff.com takes a look at some cases from the recent past where the courts awarded the capital punishment for horrific crimes that fall under the rarest of rare category.

Over a dozen inmates of a jail in Bihar are eagerly waiting for the much sought demand to prepare a hangman's noose, made of the famous 'manila' rope, to hang Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab after the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the death sentence of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks convict.

A jail in Bihar has offered to supply its famous 'manila' rope to hang Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested during the terror siege on Mumbai, who was awarded the death sentence by a special court on Thursday.Buxar prison is the only jail in the country that has expertise in manufacturing wax-coated manila rope, which can withstand the tension caused by the fall of the convict after the execution.Manufacturing a manila rope is a tedious affair.

Trinamool, BSP consolidate their positions in the bypolls; Left routed

The West Bengal government scheduled the hanging of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in her Kolkata home, on August 14 after President A P J Abdul Kalam rejected his mercy plea.

Dhananjay is scheduled to be hanged on August 14 for raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in Kolkata in 1990.

In January 1994, the Calcutta high court had sentenced him to be hanged until death for raping and then murdering teenager Hetal Parekh on March 5, 1990 in Kolkata's Bhawanipur area.

Friends, relatives and some jail inmates have pleaded that Chatterjee's death sentence be changed to life imprisonment.