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Human Rights campaigners have accused the Indian government of sweeping slum dwellers and beggars off Delhi's streets in an effort to "beautify" the city. The eyes of the world are on Delhi as it gears up to host the Commonwealth Games and activists fear poor people are being forced to leave because they send out the wrong image. Shanty towns across the city have been razed to the ground. Some are deemed too close to venues while others have been demolished to make way for car parks and road improvement schemes. Shivani Chaudry from the Housing And Land Rights Network...

The Commonwealth Games in India have been thrown into more chaos after a ceiling fell in at the weightlifting arena - a day after a bridge collapsed, injuring 27 people. The latest calamity comes as Scotland said it was delaying sending its athletes to Delhi over health and safety fears, and Wales gave organisers a deadline of this evening to confirm whether the venues are fit for purpose. In another development, Mike Fennell, the Games' federation chief, announced he was travelling to the Indian capital for emergency talks. Some of the world's top athletes have already pulled out amid widespread...

India inaugurated a multi-billion-dollar airport terminal in New Delhi on Saturday -- a shiny glass and steel symbol of the country's aspirations as an emerging global power The state-of-the-art hub, which cost nearly three billion dollars and can handle 34 million passengers a year, was showcased at a special ceremony by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ahead of opening to the public later this month. Built in just 37 months to coincide with New Delhi's hosting of the Commonwealth Games in October, the terminal sprawls over four square kilometres (1.5 square miles) and boasts 97 automated walkways and 78 aerobridges. "This...

Note: The following text is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, March 18, 2010 Chicago Resident David Coleman Headley Pleads Guilty to Role in India and Denmark Terrorism Conspiracies Admits Conducting Surveillance for Lashkar e Tayyiba in Planning 2008 Mumbai Attacks David Coleman Headley, a U.S. citizen of partial Pakistani descent, pleaded guilty today to a dozen federal terrorism charges, admitting that he participated in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, as well as later planning to attack a Danish newspaper. In pleading guilty to all 12 counts that were brought against him in December and were...

Note: Video included. NEW DELHI: SNIPPET: "Stephen Hampston and Steven Martin were detained by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Delhi Police on Monday for possessing some high-tech gadgets, maps and binoculars. "They checked into the hotel on February 13 and hotel authorities informed us after they found their activities suspicious. We are questioning them," a police officer said."

NEW DELHI: SNIPPET: "The US national, identified as Winston Marshal Carmichael, was detained late last night after CISF personnel found knife in his hand baggage during the security check when he was to leave for Doha in a Qatar Airways flight, official sources said. ( Watch Video ) Reminiscent of the case of terror suspect David Headley, arrested in Chicago in October last for allegedly plotting terror strikes in India, Carmichael is a convert from Christianity to Islam. The New York resident changed his religion some 40 years ago. Carmichael, who was flying to Doha in a Qatar Airways flight,...

"UP cops nab IM terrorist planning aerial strike" Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui, TNN, 2 February 2010, 01:48am IST SNIPPET: "LUCKNOW/NEW DELHI: The arrest of Shehzad alias Pappu — one of the key accused in the September 2008 serial blasts in Delhi and the Batla House encounter — by the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) of UP Police from Azamgarh on Monday evening is being seen as a major breakthrough in exposing a module that was planning to unleash air strikes. Shehzad, intelligence agencies had recently discovered, had undergone a training to fly planes from an institute in Bangalore and had surfaced as a...

The government of the Indian capital, Delhi, has been paying salaries to 22,853 civic workers who do not exist. Salaries for the missing Municipal Corporation of Delhi workers add up to nearly $43m a year, City Mayor Kanwar Sain said in a statement. The "gap" was discovered after the authorities introduced a biometric system of recording attendance. Correspondents say it shows some civic officials created a list of "ghost workers" to siphon off state funds. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) employs more than 100,000 cleaners, gardeners, teachers and other workers. 'Gap' City officials became aware there were thousands of...

SNIPPET: "The Centre has warned the citizens against possible terror attacks in five cities of India, which are expected to take place around the first anniversary of Mumbai terror attacks. "The Intelligence Bureau has received some inputs from state governments that terrorists were trying to infiltrate through the Indian west coast and target vital installations in the country’, revealed a Home Ministry official to a news channel. The state governments have been given the orders for boosting the security in and around railway stations, airports as well as other significant places." SNIPPET: "This Home Ministry alert is based on the...

A scheme named “Developing of Traffic and Communication Network in NCR and Mega Cities and Model System of Traffic Management” has been included for implementation in 11th Five Years Plan with a provision of Rs. 200 crore. The scheme has two components viz., (i)Introduction of Intelligent traffic system (ITS) and (ii) Setting up of an Integrated Date communication Network (Cyber Highway). The scheme comprises a wide range of novel tools for managing transport networks, as well as services for travelers. The project broadly includes the state-of-art command and control centre, a city video surveillance system covering the maximum number of...

NEW DELHI: Three-wheeler autos in the capital have come under the security scanner after the terror siege of Mumbai. According to highly placed government sources, there are intelligence inputs on the possible use of autos for triggering a blast in a crowded area of Delhi. The Intelligence Bureau has also sounded a fresh alert to Delhi Police asking them to step up security at vital installations in the capital after an email, which police sources said was signed by the "Deccan Mujahideen", warned of a repeat of the Mumbai terror attack at Indira Gandhi International Airport and the three major...

Delhi Police Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who died battling [Islamic] terrorists during an encounter, was on Saturday cremated with full state honours after a tearful adieu. The mortal remains of 41-year old Sharma, considered an encounter specialist and posted with elite anti-terror squad Special Cell, were consigned to flames after the Delhi police contingent paid him a three-gun salute. The body, draped in a Delhi Police flag, was brought to the Nigambodh Ghat in New Delhi with 12 personnel escorting it amid chants of ‘Bharta Mata Ki Jai’ and ‘M C Sharma Amar Rahe’. A number of political leaders, including...

via translation - ALERT - India: shootout between police and Islamist activists in Delhi NEW DELHI - A shootout was underway Friday in a Muslim neighborhood in New Delhi between police and Islamist activists, announced televisions, nearly a week after attacks in the Indian capital, who have 24 dead.

My first visit to New Delhi was in 1983. I went there as an ambitious reporter to cover the annual meeting of Iata, the airlines' trade body. Having blagged an upgrade with JAL, the Japanese carrier, I experienced for the first time what it was like to travel long-haul in the comfy seats nearest the pilot. The flight took the "silk route" - I recall stopping in Europe and again somewhere in the Middle East - which gave me plenty of time to think about what to expect in India: I was braced for tiny pockets of extreme wealth amid...

Excerpt - DELHI, La. (AP) - Interstate 20, a major east-west route across north Louisiana was shut down Friday afternoon after a nearby oil pipeline erupted in flames. Sgt. Markus Smith of the Louisiana State police says the explosion happened about 1 pm. Details were sketchy, but Smith says the pipeline was burning just east of Delhi, a small town about 200 miles northwest of New Orleans. The dispatcher for the Richland Parish Sheriff's Department, who would not give his name, says the oil line is about 50 yards from the interstate. He says the four-mile stretch from Delhi to...

Monkeys kill Delhi deputy mayor Delhi has long struggled to cope with the marauding monkeys The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi died on Sunday after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys. SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys. The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by. The High Court demanded the city find an answer to the problem last year. Solution elusiveOne approach has...

The foreign ministers of India, Russia and China were meeting Wednesday in the Indian capital in a bid to strengthen relations and to explore cooperation on issues such as counterterrorism and energy security, Indian officials said. The meeting between India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and their Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing is part of efforts by the three countries to forge a trilateral forum to work more closely on regional security issues, the officials said. "This will be the second stand-alone meeting of its kind," said Navtej Sarna, external affairs ministry spokesman. The foreign ministers...

Delhi raises dengue fever alert By Sanjoy Majumder BBC correspondent, Delhi Diseases such as dengue and malaria are common in the monsoon Indian health officials have launched a massive drive to contain an outbreak of dengue fever in the capital, Delhi. Thousands of workers fanned out across the city spraying pesticides as part of a door-to-door campaign on Monday. The mosquito-borne disease has claimed 11 lives over the past two weeks and more than 400 people have been affected in and around the capital. Dengue fever can lead to high fever, with flu-like symptoms, and even to brain haemorrhage. Hospital...

NEW DELHI: The Special Cell of the Delhi police on Monday claimed that it had concrete evidence of active collusion between the Pakistan Army, its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) network and the banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in carrying out militant attacks in India. This was allegedly revealed by Abu Anas, the Pakistani LeT militant arrested with a conduit, Mohammad Issa, at New Delhi railway station on August 10. During interrogation, Anas revealed that he had worked as the personal security guard of Zaki-ur-Rehman, second-in-command in the LeT hierarchy in Pakistan, from July 2005 to May 2006. Being his personal guard,...

NEW DELHI (XFN-ASIA) - Two cities in India may be targetted for attack by Al-Qaeda militants ahead of next week's Independence Day celebrations, the US embassy in New Delhi warned. There may be attacks by Al-Qaeda in 'New Delhi and Mumbai (Bombay) in the days leading to the Independence Day,' embassy spokesman David Kennedy told CNN-IBN news channel. Kennedy said the information is based on intelligence gathered along with the Indian government. Serial train bombings in Bombay on July 11, blamed by the government on Islamic militant groups, killed 183 people and injured almost 900.