Prime Minister and Obama dinner in a tent
The Obamas will be holding their first state dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, not in the White House's State Dining Room but under a white marquee erected on the South Lawn. Former President Bill Clinton will not attend, but his wife, secretary of state Hillary Clinton, will of course be there.
President Obama and First Lady Michelle have chosen to go for the marquee -much like the shamiana at an Indian wedding, though not as colourful as they plan to host 400 guests, while the State Dining Room can seat no more than 140, media reports said.
The November 24 dinner is the third White House dinner for India in the past decade: Bill Clinton hosted one in 2000 for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, while George W.
Bush had one in 2005 for Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur.
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Railway to launch 2 `Yuva' trains
It's now the turn of the country's `yuva' (youth) to benefit from the Indian railways services. The latter is busy fine-tuning the launch of two `Yuva' trains which, as earlier announced by rail minister Mamata Banerjee in the budget, will be "dedicated specially for the young generation".
The first two trains which are to be launched as part of a pilot project will run between Delhi and Mumbai and Delhi and Howrah. The USP of the Yuva trains is "to ensure that the youth and low income groups can travel at low rates" between major cities.
To ensure that the ticket prices of these trains remain affordable, the railways have decided to have only sitting accommodation on these trains.
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Ship with 100 tourists stuck in Antarctic ice
A Russian icebreaker carrying over 100 tourists, scientists and journalists on a cruise around Antarctica has become stuck in the ice, a shipping company said on Tuesday.
The Captain Khlebnikov icebreaker and the tourists onboard are not at any risk, German Kuzin of the Fareastern Shipping Company told Russia's Vesti 24 television.
Mr Kuzin said the ship is waiting for a stronger wind to try to begin moving again. He said the icebreaker is about 5 miles from clear water near the Snow Hill Island in the Weddel Sea.
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I was sold to Lashkar-e-Taiba by my dad: Kasab
Ajmal Amir Kasab, the sole surviving terrorist of the group of ten sent by the Pakistan based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba to attack Mumbai, says his father essentially sold him into the group.
Kasab, who was part of the pair that killed 50 and wounded more than 100 at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the city's main railway station, makes the suggestion in tapes included in a new documentary, Terror in Mumbai airing on HBO on Thursday.
Snatches of cellphone conversations -- many never heard before between the gunmen and their controllers in Pakistan, as well as video footage of the police with Kasab were aired on Sunday
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Was Rana in Kochi to recruit for terror?
The National Investigation Agency, which has formed special teams to track the activities of David Coleman Headley and his associate Tahawwur Hassan Rana in this country in the past few years, on Sunday conducted raids at a number of places in Mumbai and New Delhi to probe their possible links to 26/11 and other terror attacks in India.
In Kerala, where Rana is learnt to have stayed at the Taj Residency hotel in Kochi for a few days a little before 26/11, investigations are on to ascertain if Headley's associate was on a mission there to recruit local youths to carry out terror attacks. Rana had stayed at the hotel with a woman identified as Samraz Rana, like him also a Canadian national and believed to be his wife, and had posed as a recruiter, interviewing a number of people in his hotel room. A NIA team will visit Kerala soon.
Searches were carried out at cybercafes, telephone booths and a large number of budget hotels in and around the Paharganj area of central New Delhi, and a separate team of officers
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Toll in Bihar: 40 dead as strike by doctors goes on
The death toll of patents at Patna Medical College and Hospital rose to 40 in three days two more than the toll during a fiveday strike by the same junior doctors in August but there was no sign of either any credible effort by the government to end the strike or any softening of stand by the junior doctors, who want their stipends raised, as promised by the Bihar government in August.
Dilip Kumar, a 28-year-old daily-wage labourer who came to the PMCH for surgery to cure his aggravated appendicitis two days ago, left the hospital on Thursday. "I don't have enough money to go to a private hospital. I don't want to go back home either," he said.
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Nasa: Asteroid 2009 VA almost hit earth
A 26 foot-wide asteroid almost hit the earth when it passed within about 14,000 km of the planet recently, Nasa has said.
The asteroid, called 2009 VA, was noticed only 15 hours before it made its closest approach towards the planet on last Friday. It came 30 times nearer than the moon, which is 250,000 miles away, the US space agency said.
Similar sized objects pass by this close to earth about twice a year and impact on the planet about once in every five years, it said. This was the third closest known (non-impacting) earth approach by any asteroid.
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