On the election front, the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena combination is set to retain their dominance in the Mumbai civic body. The other major news is that of AK Antony’s reassurance that India is serious about the matter of the fishermen who were killed off the coast of Kerala by armed guards on the Italian vessel Enrica Lexie. You can listen to his comments in the bulletin.
People gather as an Indian fishing boat that was fired at by an Italian cargo ship arrives with the dead bodies of two fishermen. AP
H Suresh, a retired judge who was part of a people’s tribunal that visited Gujarat in May 2002 was speaking to NDTV and claims that he has an audio recording of former minister Haren Pandya , where Narendra Modi had called a meeting telling police to look the other way during the riots. The judge also says that the Special Investigations Team ignored their testimonies.
The recently approved National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) faces a major hurdle, with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee joining her counterparts J Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu, Naveen Patnaik of Orissa and Nitish Kumar of Bihar in strongly opposing it. Pallavi Ghosh has a round-up in our bulletin.
In world news, Syrian troops have intensified shelling parts of the city of Homs- a day after the UN General Assembly called for an end to violence. One opposition group said the bombardment was the heaviest since troops launched attacks on anti-government strongholds 13 days ago. A senior Chinese envoy is meanwhile due to meet President Bashar al-Assad over the matter.
In sport, Sri Lanka, helped by captain Mahela Jayawardene’s unbeaten half century, registered their first win of the cricket tri-series with an eight-wicket crushing of Australia in a rain-affected match. Also, both the Manchester clubs won their Europa League last 32 tie last night. Manchester United beat Ajax 2-0 and City came from behind to win 2-1 against holders Porto.