Taliban bomb heart of Kabul
9 ultras among 14 killed in explosions, gunfire
Kabul, January 18
Taliban gunmen launched a brazen assault on the centre of Kabul on Monday, with suicide bombers blowing themselves up at several locations and militants battling security forces from inside a shopping centre engulfed in flames.

Blow to peace plan
Nation page: Pak needs to do more to check Taliban: Holbrooke

An Afghan policeman stands in front of the shopping mall in Kabul, where Taliban gunmen battled security forces for hours on Monday. — Reuters

Army differs with J&K admn on Chinese incursions
New Delhi, January 18
The Indian Army does not seem to share fears expressed by the Civil Administration in Jammu and Kashmir that China was grabbing land in Ladakh along the Line of Control. Rather it threatens to blow it up as a tussle between the forces and civil side.

Fog engulfs North for second day
New Delhi, January 18
A thick blanket of fog covered parts of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh for the second consecutive day today even as minimum temperatures soared by three degrees Celsius at some places.

Ruchika Case
Rathore can abscond: CBI to court
Chandigarh, January 18
Less than a week after it took over the investigation into fresh cases in the Ruchika molestation and suicide case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today told the Punjab and Haryana High Court that Haryana’s former Director-General of Police SPS Rathore “can abscond or otherwise hamper the investigations”.

44 varsities may lose deemed status
New Delhi, January 18
Following an year-long dissection of performance of 130 existing deemed-to-be universities in the country, the government panel constituted for the purpose has recommended withdrawal of the deemed status from 44 institutions, found committing academic lapses, including allowing families to run institutions.

China haven for cyber criminals: McAfee
Bangalore, January 18
Long before Internet search giant Google threatened to move out of China in protest against censorship and hacking of gmail accounts of Chinese human right activists, a reputed Internet security company had identified China as one of the two countries becoming “haven for cyber criminals”.
Google’s exit may benefit India
Chinese hackers tried to hack our computers: NSA

Holidays rain in Punjab Chandigarh, January 18 Punjab declared a public holiday today to mourn the death of CPM veteran Jyoti Basu. And if declaring a public holiday is a show of sorrow, then no other state in the country other than West Bengal was “grieved” enough.