Following intelligence reports that there could be trouble following hanging of Balwant Singh Rajoana on March 31, the prime accused in the 1995 Beant Singh murder case, the Prakash Singh Badal government has put the entire state on high alert to deal with any untoward incident and have directed the state police to maintain law and order.
Hundreds of Sikhs, including a large number of women and university students participated in a protest on Friday outside the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, California, to show support to Bhai Balwant Singh Rajoana who was sentenced to capital punishment in the case of murder of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in 1995.
Arjun Tendulkar, son of cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar, was named in Mumbai's Under-19 squad for the sixth All India Under-19 J Y Lele Invitational One-Day tournament, in Vadodara, starting September 16. Mumbai will be led by Suved Parkar.
Backed by ruling Akali Dal, the SGPC, apex religious body of Sikhs, will file a clemency appeal before the President for Balwant Singh Rajoana, who is on death row for the 1995 killing of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, even as ally BJP steered clear of the issue.
The home ministry will examine on merit the mercy petition of Balwant Singh Rajoana, sentenced to death for assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, and it will be submitted to President Pratibha Patil for a final decision.
The hanging of Balwant Singh Rajoana, assassin of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, was on Wednesday stayed by the Centre following a mercy petition.
To add to all the dismay and frustration, the luggage including players' kits, team equipment and personal belongings of all the players and support staff also went missing when they landed.
A day-long bandh called by radical Sikh outfits to protest the proposed execution of Balwant Singh Rajoana, convicted in the Beant Singh killing case, disrupted normal life in parts of Punjab on Wednesday.
For Sikhs, they say, honour is the bottom line; and whatever the state of the SAD's political fortunes today, arrogance will not be helpful in the negotiation.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said the chief minister had told him that he or his government had nothing to do with it as it was being done by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhik Committee. Congress leaders disputed Badal's claims and told Chidambaram that the SGPC was under direct control of Badal's party, the Shiromani Akali Dal.
A vihar dedicated to the Buddha, apostle of universal love being built on the disputed site in Ayodhya, might actually be a mutually acceptable and eminently sensible settlement for many Hindus and Muslims themselves, says Yogi Sikand on reading Ambedkarite scholar Balwant Singh Charvak's book
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to pass any order on a clemency plea for Balwant Singh Rajoana, who had been awarded the death penalty for the assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh. A bench of justices T S Thakur and Gyan Sudha Misra said it cannot pass any direction as the convict has not filed any petition before it and the petitioner Abhinav Ramakrishna has no locus standi to plead on his behalf.
Talking exclusively to rediff.com, Rajoana's sister Kamaljit Kaur said: "He stands for Khalistan and we support him. We will stand with him through thick and thin. My brother is in high spirits and he is ready for any eventuality."
A senior SP leader requesting anonymity said that the party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections.
One of the agitating truck owners died after an 8-day hunger strike in Keonjhar on Wednesday, sparking tension and law and order problem in the district.
Three persons were taken into custody on Thursday by a Delhi police team in Haryana's Jind district in connection with the murder of Bahujan Samaj Party leader and real estate tycoon Deepak Bhardwaj.
Amid separatist slogans and "honouring" of death row convict Balwant Singh Rajoana, the 28th anniversary of Operation Bluestar to flush out militants from Sikh holy shrine the Golden Temple, was on Wednesday observed at Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat, an event from which Punjab's ruling Shiromani Akali Dal kept away.
In a criticism of Punjab government spearheading the campaign for mercy to death convict Balwant Singh Rajoana, the Supreme Court on Thursday virtually deprecated its action saying he was convicted in a case of broad daylight killing of a chief minister.
Amarinder, 75, was sworn in as the state's 26th chief minister along with nine ministers, including Navjot Singh Sidhu.
A group of Sikh leaders on Tuesday conferred the status of "great martyr" on Beant Singh, one of the assassins of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, at a function organised by the Dal Khalsa in Jalandhar.
Eight policemen including two special police officers were arrested when they were caught red handed in a sting operation drive by senior police officers in Jammu.
Defending champions Punjab were shocked by Manipur 2-1 in the quarter-final Group A league opener in the 63rd National Football championship, for the Santosh Trophy, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, in Chennai on Tuesday.
Ranty Martins struck twice as United SC came back from behind to stun defending champions Churchill Brothers 3-2 in an eighth round I-League clash in Kalyani, West Bengal on Saturday.
India finished their preparations for the upcoming Asian Cup Football Championship by holding a superior Oman to a goalless draw in their final warm-up game, in Abu Dhabi, on Thursday.
I-League champions Salgaocar SC stormed into the semi-finals of the Federation Cup football tournament after blanking Pailan Arrows 3-0 at the Balewadi Sports Complex, in Pune, on Thursday.
In a bid to strengthen the information-gathering mechanism to thwart terror activities, the Gujarat government has decided to create a special intelligence unit by directly recruiting cadres.
Balwant Singh said the other accused have been falsely implicated in the case
Akhilesh Yadav said those who are looking for "profit" in the situation will leave.
Action will be taken against such MLAs, he said.
Former champions Mohun Bagan rode on a Balwant Singh first-half strike and held their nerves after being reduced to 10 men to secure a hard-fought 1-0 win over Churchill Brothers in their 10th I-League opener in Barasat on Sunday.
JCT stunned defending champions Dempo 2-1 in their opening game of the I-League match.
A local Bharatiya Janata Party leader was shot dead on Sunday, allegedly by a Bahujan Samaj Party activist, sparking massive violence in Uttarakhand's Nainital district. In the ensuing violence, a policeman was burnt alive by a mob, which also torched a police station and over a dozen vehicles. Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the killing of Balwant Singh, head of Kotabagh block in the district.
The veteran leader was cremated at his native Bhugterian village amid "Bhim Singh amar rahe" slogans.
Kerala lad Denson Devadas struck twice as Bengal made a spectacular comeback to beat Punjab 2-1, ending their 11 years title drought in the 64th National Football Championship for Santosh Trophy in Kolkata.
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on February 27.
With the expiry of the seven years' stipulated time, authorities are set to declare 228 missing in the 2002 post-Godhra riots as dead.
A less-than-impressive India scored in the dying moments to beat Afghanistan 1-0 and begin their SAFF Championships on a winning note in Dhaka on Saturday.
Only 52 km out of the 1,643 km stretch of international border with Myanmar is manned by Indian security forces.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
A 61-year-old doctor was shot dead at his clinic in south-west Delhi's Palam area by an unidentified assailant, police said on Saturday.
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