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RSS chief says India should be ready for nuclear war NEW DELHI: The head of India's rightwing Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh ( RSS , National Volunteers Corps) has warned that a nuclear war with Pakistan could become inevitable if peaceful means fail to rein in terrorism and voiced the chilling prospect of a Third World War breaking out, which he feels may cleanse the world of evil . Mr K.S. Sudarshan, the powerful supreme leader of the RSS who may wield even greater clout in the next government, said in an interview widely distributed on the email on Thursday, and verified as authentic by senior RSS officials on Friday, that the Mumbai terror attacks were only part of a bigger plan to destroy India . "They want India to be broken into pieces but Indian people have always won. " "We are tolerant, but a very brave society. We were defeated and enslaved only when we were disunited." However, in remarks that could leave global diplomacy grappling with chilling poss...

NEW DELHI: Union minister A R Antulay, who is at the centre of a storm triggered by his remarks on the circumstances surrounding Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare's killing , has sent his resignation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, highly placed sources said on Friday. 79-year-old Antulay, whose remarks created an uproar in Parliament and outside with the opposition parties demanding his removal, had sent his resignation on Wednesday night , they said. When contacted, Antulay declined to comment, saying "I am neither confirming it nor denying it". Earlier on Wednesday, Antulay set off a major political row by demanding a probe into the shooting of Karkare in the 26/11 terror strikes which he linked to investigations into the alleged involvement of Hindu radicals in the Malegaon blast case. Stating that the circumstances of Karkare's shooting "may be inquired into", Antulay seemed to have borrowed a leaf from Pakistani TV hosts who have claimed t...

Statement by President Zardai In a U turn, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari tonight said there is still no firm proof that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai came from Pakistan nor had it been established that the arrested terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab came from the country's Punjab province. "Have you seen any evidence to that effect. I have definitely not seen any real evidence to that effect," Zardari told BBC in an interview . Zardari, who earlier acknowledged that the perpetrators of the Mumbai massacre could be 'non-state' actors from Pakistan, made these remarks while responding to a question on assertions from India, US, Britain and other countries that the ten terrorists who struck at Mumbai came from Pakistan. On being told that the British prime minister Gordon Brown as well as Indian and Western Intelligence agencies had stated that the Mumbai attack had originated from Pakistan, Zardari said "Investigation is an evolving process. It ha...

Antulay shoots mouth, says Karkare death suspicious Minority Affairs Minister AR Antulay found himself facing fierce criticism on Wednesday after raising doubts whether former Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare had been killed by elements unhappy with his investigations in cases involving “non-Muslims”. Karkare was independently investigating certain non-Muslims who were terrorists, Antulay said in an apparent reference to the Malegaon blast case in which Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Shrikant Purohit are allegedly involved. “Any person going to the root of the terror has always been the target” , Antulay said. The minister’s remarks came under immediate and sharp attack from the BJP and the Shiv Sena. “The Prime Minister must clarify whether these remarks are an ‘individual misdemeanor or the collective wisdom of the cabinet’,” said BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy. Sena member Ananth Geethe demanded a clarification from Chidambaram. Later, in an apparent attempt to ...

A young girl is sitting in front of me, ironing the white shalwar kameez that is her uniform ,ready for school the next day. We have been chatting about the usual stuff - clothes, movies, school... I ask her about the halats and how it affects her - halat meaning the situation. No more needs to be said: she knows I am talking about. what has repeatedly been termed The Kashmir Issue. "So many girls have been raped in Kashmir and so many of them are known to me," she said. "One girl was interrogated and raped in front of her begging father-in-law." She sees the tears in my eyes, folds the kameez she has just finished ironing and picks up the shalwar. "This is what happens all the time - our lives are built around deaths, rapes, murders. For two days we go to college and then for the next four days it's closed because of a curfew or something going on." This is not a joke to them, there is no childlike joy in being given a day off school. She feels it ...