Latest news, updated at 11:30 am  VVIP chopper deal: CBI team leaves for Italy...more  Nagaland Home Minister resigns...more  Jaipur HC to decide on Gujjar quota...more

Govt ready to discuss copter deal: PM
New Delhi, February 18
Having come under attack from the Opposition on allegations of kickback in the VVIP helicopter deal, the Manmohan Singh Government today gave ample indication that it is ready to discuss the issue suggesting that Parliament was the appropriate forum for it.

Nation page: India to use UN pact to get papers from Italy

Same-day visa for Indian businessmen: British PM
Cameron heads 100-member team
Mumbai, February 18
Britain will introduce same-day visa service for Indian businessmen wanting to invest there, Prime Minister David Cameron announced today as he kicked off his three-day visit to India. 

Editorial page: David Cameron to take up NRIs’ case

UK Sikhs hope Cameron will regret Jallianwala
Chandigarh, February 18
Nearly half a million strong Sikh community in the UK, 56 per cent of which has British birth, hopes that Prime Minister David Cameron would regret the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, where  hundreds of peacefully protesting Sikhs, including women and children, were done to death by British troops, during his visit to Amritsar on February 20.

Shut for 9 days, Kashmir back to normal
Srinagar, February 18
Shops reopened and other businesses resumed their operations in the Kashmir valley on Monday after remaining closed for the past nine days when the region was shut due to crippling curfews and shutdowns in the aftermath of the February 9 hanging of the 2001 Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru.
Life in Srinagar returns to normalcy after the Kashmir valley remained shut for nine days following the hanging of Afzal Guru, in Srinagar on Monday. — PTI 

Nagaland minister held with Rs 1.1 cr, arms
Guwahati, February 18
Nagaland Home Minister Imkong L Imchen, a senior leader of the ruling Nagaland People’s Front (NPF), was today detained in Wokha district of the poll-bound state after he was found carrying Rs 1.10 crore in cash and a huge cache of arms and ammunition in the vehicle he was travelling in.

ICA upholds India’s right on Kishanganga
New Delhi, February 18
The International Court of Arbitration (ICA) at The Hague today upheld India's right to divert water from the Kishanganga hydroelectric project (KHEP). Reacting to the development, an official spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs said: “The award of the Court of Arbitration at The Hague today reaffirmed validity of India's position regarding KHEP by allowing diversion of water from the KHEP as envisaged by India.”

Sex workers threaten stir as govt proposes penalising clients
Fear the move will push trade underground, jeopardise those involved, hit initiative to combat HIV/AIDS
New Delhi, February 18
A move by the Ministry of Women and Child Development proposing to criminalise clients of sex has triggered a storm in the commercial sex industry. The stakeholders in the initiative to prevent HIV/AIDS are also petrified over the consequences of the proposal. First mooted in 2006, the proposed amendment to the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA) provides for penalising “any person who visits or is found in a brothel for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation of any victim of trafficking”.