A staggering 1,00,000 invites, including to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have been sent out for Samajwadi Party supremo’s grand nephew’s pre-wedding ceremony in Saifai village on Saturday where mouthwatering dishes like bedai, baati-chokha and halwa soaked in desi ghee will be served.

Saifai village, some 25 km from Etawah, is buzzing with frantic activity for the ’tilak’ ceremony of Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, Lok Sabha member from Mainpuri, who will marry Raj Laxmi, the youngest daughter of former Bihar chief ministers Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi, on February 26 in New Delhi.

Both Modi and mega star Amitabh Bachchan have confirmed their presence, officials said.

Mulayam Singh had personally invited Modi for the ceremony.

A team from the Prime Minister’s Special Protection Group (SPG) has already visited Saifai to asses the security scenario, a police official said, adding a rehearsal with an Indian Air Force (IAF) plane landing has also been done at the village air strip.

Also flying down to Saifai Saturday are a string of Bollywood stars, singers, politicians, state and Union Cabinet ministers, chief ministers of other states and bureaucrats.

Family sources said that more than 1,00,000 invites have been sent to relatives, politicians, village folk, journalists, judges and celebrities from other fields.

Pakistani singer Adnan Sami, who recently participated in the Saifai Mahotsava, will croon this time too.

Special chefs camped in the native village of the Yadavs, offering mouth watering dishes which includes Gujarati food, traditional UP and Bihari food and also cuisine tailormade for the Bollywood stars.

Special on the menu would be ‘sarrata’ (special sour raita), bedai, dahi-ke-aloo, baati-chokha, ulda poorie, paneer filled chola-bhature. Among the sweet delicacies are imarti, jalebi served with chilled rabri, sohan halwa, kulfi and moong ki daal ka halwa soaked in pure desi ghee.

In a shocking development, two Rohtak sisters, who had hogged limelight last year when a video of them thrashing their alleged molesters on a moving Haryana Roadways bus emerged, have failed polygraph test, a report said on Thursday.

The alleged ‘molesters’ have passed the test. However, senior superintendent of police Shashank Anand and SIT head DSP Yashpal Khatana have refused to make the report public.

A local court had, on December 15, 2014, granted permission to the Special Investigation Team of Haryana Police to conduct polygraph test on the two Rohtak sisters and their alleged molesters.

The SIT had been set up after the incident.

The case had grabbed headlines after the two sisters thrashed their alleged molesters on the moving bus, but later came under criticism after conflicting versions of the incident emerged.

Pooja and Aarti had alleged that they were not only molested, but also physically assaulted and thrown out of the bus by the three boys.

However, an ‘eyewitness’ – an old lady – later came out in the open and said nothing of that sort happened. She claimed that the fight between the girls and the boys started over a seat.

Also, police could not trace the ‘pregnant woman’ who had recorded the incident on her mobile phone.

What also put the sisters’ claim in doubt was the surfacing of another video, taken about a month before the bus incident, which showed the sisters beating up a boy in a park after he allegedly teased them.

Accused in the bus incident and others questioned how someone was always present to record the actions of the Rohtak sisters and whether they had a penchant of entering into a fight with boys.

BJP leader Kalraj Mishra has said that the party is chalking out concrete plans in Uttar Pradesh to tackle its crushing defeat in the recent Delhi polls.

Mishra, Union Minister for Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises said that BJP suffered loss in Delhi Assembly Elections after projecting “parachute leaders”.

“This is right that the party suffered loss in Delhi Assembly Elections due to entry of Kiran Bedi. Now to tackle such situation in other states, the party is chalking out a concrete strategy,” he said on Wednesday.

The Minister noted that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) might have stopped the victory run of BJP, but there was no lack of zeal and the party was preparing for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections with full force.

The entire opposition, including Congress contributed to the success of AAP in the Delhi polls that became the reason behind BJP’s defeat.

Kalraj said that his ministry would provide employment to one lakh youths in the state every year and for this 12,000 units of small industries would be set up.

He said that this would be done under PM employment creation programme.

Armed forest guards have shot dead a man-eating tiger in southern India after the animal attacked and killed a farmer and a tea plantation worker, an official said Thursday.

The tiger pounced on the farmer who had entered a forest in the state of Kerala earlier this month, eating most of his body, forest officer C Badrasamy said.

The same animal then attacked a woman as she worked on a plantation on Saturday, after the tiger apparently roamed into neighbouring Tamil Nadu state on the other side of the forest, Badrasamy said.

“There was panic in the area and angry villagers then started ransacking forest property, demanding that the tiger be killed immediately,” Badrasamy said by phone from Tamil Nadu.

A 50-strong team of forest officers, constables and vets had fanned out across jungle in Tamil Nadu, armed with a photo of the big cat from colleagues in Kerala, before finding and tranquilising it.

But the tiger escaped amid chaotic scenes after some 500 villagers gathered to look at the animal, Badrasamy said.

After it was again spotted in the jungle, the officers tried to use dart guns but opened fire with live rounds on Wednesday as it tried to pounce on a team member.

“Of course our priority was to capture and not kill the tiger. But circumstances were such that we had no other option,” Badrasamy said.

“It could have attacked other people sooner than later.”

More than half of the world’s rapidly dwindling wild tiger population lives in India with a recent census reporting a 30 percent jump in their numbers in the last four years to 2,226.

“Man-eating tigers are very rare. This particular tiger probably had multiple injuries, it may have lost its territory and was expelled from there,” Badrasamy said.

The Indian government has been working to reduce deadly encounters between tigers and humans, as farmers and others encroach on their forests, forcing the cats to stray in search of water and food.

Another tiger is thought to have killed about a dozen people in northern India last February. The animal is not believed to have been killed or captured.

The Indian Navy has been put on high alert amid intelligence inputs that Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists could try to infiltrate into India through sea route.

The LeT could also target Indian naval assets, including warships, in the coming days.

The naval wing of the LeT near Karachi, as per intelligence inputs, has been active for the past several months and could be planning attack on India.

Intel sources said the LeT could even take assistance of the Pakistani Navy for the purposes.

The inputs come just weeks after an alleged Pakistani terror boat was intercepted 365 miles off the Porbandar coast in Gujarat by the Coast Guard.

Occupants of the vessel, believed to be four in number, had set the boat on fire after being challenged by the Coast Guard.

It may be recalled that the 10 terrorists, who carried out the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, had entered the Indian territory through sea route, sailing to Mumbai via Karachi in the Arabian Sea.

In a big relief to social activist Teesta Setalvad, the Supreme Court on Thursday stayed her arrest in a case of alleged embezzlement of funds for a museum in Ahmedabad’s Gulbarg Society that was devastated in the 2002 riots.

The apex court bench, which heard the anticipatory bail plea of Teesta Setalvad and her husband, also directed the social activist to give complete list of donors for the construction of a memorial in the Gulbarg Society.

The highest court, while passing the order, said that Teesta Setalvad and her husband shall not be arrested in the funds embezzlement case till its final order is given.

While reserving its verdict in the case, the apex court also asked the Gujarat Police to explain why it needs the custodial interrogation of the social activist.

The apex court bench, however, said that if Teesta does not cooperate in probe, the Gujarat Police can file application for cancellation of their bail.
The order was passed by a new bench of the Supreme Court, which took up the case in a surprise move.

No reasons were given for the change in the bench. The case was shifted from the bench of Justices SJ Mukhopadhya and NV Ramana, which had granted protection from arrest to the couple for six days on February 13, to a bench comprising Justices Dipak Mishra and Adarsh Kumar Goel.

The bench of Justices Mukhopadhaya and Ramana had said during the last hearing that the allegations against Setalvad and her husband were “grave” and it was not even a case for quashing the FIR.

It had even asked couple to “surrender and seek regular bail” as they have been accused of collecting funds in the names of riots victims and religion but later granted the relief.

There were a number of occasions during the 30-minute hearing when the previous bench put questions to senior advocate Kapil Sibal and making it clear that the “allegations” against them were “grave” and warned against bringing “politics” in the matter.

The Bench had said it was not going to be moved by the names of persons and the matter would be treated like that of any ordinary citizen or individual.

In a controversial statement, Jamiat Ulema’s Mufti Muhammad Ilyas has said that Lord Shiva was Muslims’ first prophet.

Not just this, the mufti also said that all Muslims were the followers of Sanatan Dharma.

Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati are our creators also, the Jamiat Ulema added, stoking debates.

“We are not opposed to declaring India a Hindu country. The way population residing in China and Japan are called Chinese and Japanese respectively, we are called Hindustani,” he said.

A delegation of Jamiat Ulema visited Ayodhya on Wednesday to urge saints to participate in a conference on communal harmony on February 27 in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh.

Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth on Thursday asked public not to panic in view of the ongoing swine flu in the country.

He said that all protective measures required to tackle the disease are available and that there is no reason to fear.

Mr Seth also said that PM Narendra Modi has given instructions to ensure that medicines are available and patients get necessary treatment.

Quite a few of the deaths happened because the treatment and screening were not done on time, added Seth.

Meanwhile, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain said that his government has made necessary arrangements to tackle swine flu outbreak in the national capital and are handling it well.

The death toll from Swine flu or H1N1 virus has rose to 663 across the country and over 10,000 people have been affected with the deadly avian influenza.

In a major setback for Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, the Patna High Court on Thursday barred eight rebel Janata Dal (United) from voting during the confidence motion scheduled for Friday.

The High Court’s order is expected to have an extensive effect on the support of Manjhi at the time of floor test in thestate assembly.

Manjhi who claims the support of majority of MLAs is set to organize a show of strength of those supporting him today. Just before the test on Friday, the Bihar CM will also hold a Cabinet meeting on Thursday.

Both Manjhi and the JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar are in talks with the MLAs to protect their support.

On Thursday afternoon, Bihar Speaker Udai Narain Choudhary announced that JD(U) will enjoy the position ofOpposition in the Bihar Assembly replacing Nand Kishore Yadav of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

According to the reports, Choudhary is believed to a loyalist of Nitish. After the declaration BJP MLAs in Bihar staged protest outside the speaker’s chamber and accused him of being ‘biased’.

In a possible case of corporate espionage, the Delhi Police have detained two petroleum ministry employees and three others for allegedly leaking confidential government documents.

The Delhi Police carried out raids at Shastri Bhavan and nabbed the two – one a peon and the other is a clerk.

However, they are said to have access to the offices of senior officials in the ministry. Of the other three, one is said to have claimed to be a journalist.

Media reports claimed that the detained men are being questioned and will be put under arrest.

The reports added, the five have allegedly leaked official documents to business houses.

While there is no official word yet on the development, reports said all petroleum companies are under the scanner.

“The police is investigating the matter, strict action will be taken against those involved,” Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.

“I won’t allow espionage to happen in my ministry,” Mr. Pradhan added.

Sources said that after the NDA government took over, there were concerns in ministry over availability of confidential information in public domain. So, officials were deputed officials to monitor the possibility of any such leaks, sources said, adding that a government agency was asked to probe the leaks.

Once the sources of the leaks were identified and actionable evidence generated, Delhi Police was informed, sources said. Those arrested include some low rank government servants, they added.

The police are investigating the matter to get to those who have received this confidential information.