A 65-year-old businessman dealing in brassware was shot dead by unknown armed assailants in Rani Bagh on Monday night. The police got a call about the incident and a team was sent to the spot.

The relentless furore in both Houses of Parliament on Tuesday over the missing files on coal block allocations scuttled the government’s attempt to push through the UPA’s ambitious National Food Security Bill in the Lok Sabha. The bill is now expected to be taken up in the Lower House only on Thursday.

Top Lashkar-e-Tayyaba operative and “bomb expert” Abdul Karim Tnnda, who was produced in a magistrate’s court on Tuesday, was remanded to a further four days in police custody.

A Pakistani court on Tuesday indicted former military ruler Pervez Musharraf for his role in the December 2007 assassination of former Pakistan PM Benazir Bhutto. She was killed in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi.
“The court has indicted seven accused, including Pervez Musharraf, in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case”, a court official said.

The rupee plunged sharply to a record intra-day low on Tuesday, breaching the 64-level mark against the dollar for the first time, while equity markets remained under pressure after foreign brokerage firm JP Morgan downgraded Indian stocks to neutral from overweight, and Citi lowered its target for the Sensex to 18,900 from 20,800, citing the rupee’s weakness.

While the government is working overtime to ensure parliamentary ratification of the Food Security Ordinance, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday rolled out the scheme in three states — Delhi, Haryana and Uttarakhand — on the 69th birth anniversary of her late husband, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Two unidentified men gunned down top anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, 69, early Tuesday morning in Pune while he was out for a walk. Pune’s citizens and activists were outraged, and demonstrations were held at Dr Dabholkar’s hometown in Satara.

The British government was struggling Tuesday to defend the airport detention of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda while he was transiting through Heathrow airport, as he launched legal action against his nine-hour ordeal.

Election campaign has virtually begun. While the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi launched food security programme in the national capital, the JD(U) and the Samajwadi Party are moving closer to the Congress after realising that they cannot afford to oppose the bill.

In a fresh move to win over Muslims, the Akhilesh Yadav government on Tuesday, decided to launch a new scheme for minorities in accordance with their population density and allocate 20 per cent funds of all government welfare schemes for the purpose.