The shooting down of two Indian fishermen by the security guards of an Italian merchant vessel after they were mistaken for pirates by them has not only drawn the attention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but also prompted Italian foreign minister Giulio Maria Terzi di Sant’Agata to call up external affairs minister S.M. Krishna on Saturday night.

An angry Indian government on Thursday summoned Italian ambassador Giacomo Sanfelice di Monteforte to the foreign office at short notice to register its strong protest over the killing of two Indian fishermen by security guards of an Italian merchant vessel on the high seas off the Kerala coast. The guards had allegedly mistaken the fishermen for pirates.

After Salman Khurshid, it is now Union steel minister Beni Prasad Verma who has enraged the Election Commission by raising the minority quota issue while campaigning in Uttar Pradesh, promising additional reservations for Muslims if his party is voted to power in the state.

Indian and Thai investigating agencies have so far not been able to find any direct link between the terror attack on the Israeli diplomat in Delhi and the Bangkok bombings. According to home ministry sources, this analysis is based on preliminary findings of the investigations conducted at both ends.

After interrogating the rape victim and two of the accused, the police has found many loopholes, inconsistencies and discrepancies in her statement. Luvy Gidwani, who allegedly offered lift to the victim in his car, has been in Canada since January 2.

An angry Indian government on Thursday summoned Italian ambassador Giacomo Sanfelice di Monteforte to the foreign office at short notice to register its strong protest over the killing of two Indian fishermen by security guards of an Italian merchant vessel.

Two days after a daring bomb attack on an Israeli diplomat, Tal Yehoshua, investigative agencies are still groping in the dark without any concrete leads. This when a multi-agency probe of unprecedented scale has been launched by the government.

Union home minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday said the terror attack on Israeli diplomat Tal Yehoshua was a terrorist attack executed by a “well-trained person”.
Mr Chidambaram said after a briefing by the chiefs of the Intelligence Bureau and Delhi police: “It’s quite clear a very well-trained person (carried out) this attack.”

In what appears a well-coordinated global terror attack targeting Israeli diplomats, an embassy car exploded near the Aurangzeb Road-Safdarjung Road crossing here, barely 500 metres from the Prime Minister’s residence, on Monday afternoon. Elsewhere, a car bomb was defused in an Israeli embassy vehicle in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital.

Continuing the trend that began with the first phase of polling, Uttar Pradesh recorded 59 per cent polli-ng in the second phase on Saturday in eastern UP, known as Purvanchal, which covered 59 Assem-bly seats spread over the nine districts of Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Azamgarh, Mau, Ballia and Ghazipur. The first phase had recorded around 63 per cent polling. This phase has a total of 1,098 candidates and 1.94 crore voters.