NIA arrests Lokesh Sharma in 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts case

MUMBAI: National Investigation Agency (NIA) today formally arrested key accused in 2007 Samjhauta Express blast case, Lokesh Sharma, in connection with the 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts case.

Sharma, who is already under judicial custody, was produced before a special court here, which remanded him in NIA custody till January 19, police said.

"Sharma was produced before the court which remanded him in NIA custody till January 19", said special NIA Prosecutor Rohini Salian.

With Sharma's arrest, the number of accused held in connection with the 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts has reached 4.

The multiple bomb explosions in Malegaon, a communally sensitive powerloom town in Nashik district in northern Maharashtra, about 200 kms from here, had occurred near a mosque on September 8, 2006 killing 37 people and injuring over 100.

After the blasts, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had arrested nine suspects. However, the MCOCA court had granted bail to all of them on November 5, 2012.

The probe into the blast was handed over to CBI which endorsed the ATS findings. The case then went to NIA, which came into existence in 2009, post the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

In November last, NIA had told the court that the confession of Swami Aseemanand, arrested in 2007 Hyderabad Mecca Masjid bomb blast case, pointed at the involvement of a right-wing group in the Malegaon attack.

Malegaon had seen another attack in 2008 allegedly by right wing Hindu groups. Sadhvi Pragya Singh and former Lt Col Srikant Purohit had been arrested in connection with the blast.

Read More..

FDA: New rules will make food safer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says its new guidelines would make the food Americans eat safer and help prevent the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that sicken or kill thousands of consumers each year.

The rules, the most sweeping food safety guidelines in decades, would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.

The long-overdue regulations could cost businesses close to half a billion dollars a year to implement, but are expected to reduce the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. The new guidelines were announced Friday.

Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.

Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in several of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.

In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at Jensen Farms in Colorado where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout Sunland Inc.'s peanut processing plant in New Mexico and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.

Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems, monitor their own progress and explain to the FDA how they would correct them.

"The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods.

The FDA estimates the new rules could prevent almost 2 million illnesses annually, but it could be several years before the rules are actually preventing outbreaks. Taylor said it could take the agency another year to craft the rules after a four-month comment period, and farms would have at least two years to comply — meaning the farm rules are at least three years away from taking effect. Smaller farms would have even longer to comply.

The new rules, which come exactly two years to the day President Barack Obama's signed food safety legislation passed by Congress, were already delayed. The 2011 law required the agency to propose a first installment of the rules a year ago, but the Obama administration held them until after the election. Food safety advocates sued the administration to win their release.

The produce rule would mark the first time the FDA has had real authority to regulate food on farms. In an effort to stave off protests from farmers, the farm rules are tailored to apply only to certain fruits and vegetables that pose the greatest risk, like berries, melons, leafy greens and other foods that are usually eaten raw. A farm that produces green beans that will be canned and cooked, for example, would not be regulated.

Such flexibility, along with the growing realization that outbreaks are bad for business, has brought the produce industry and much of the rest of the food industry on board as Congress and FDA has worked to make food safer.

In a statement Friday, Pamela Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's biggest food companies, said the food safety law "can serve as a role model for what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together to achieve a common goal."

The new rules could cost large farms $30,000 a year, according to the FDA. The agency did not break down the costs for individual processing plants, but said the rules could cost manufacturers up to $475 million annually.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the success of the rules will also depend on how much money Congress gives the chronically underfunded agency to put them in place. "Resources remain an ongoing concern," she said.

The farm and manufacturing rules are only one part of the food safety law. The bill also authorized more surprise inspections by the FDA and gave the agency additional powers to shut down food facilities. In addition, the law required stricter standards on imported foods. The agency said it will soon propose other overdue rules to ensure that importers verify overseas food is safe and to improve food safety audits overseas.

Food safety advocates frustrated over the last year as the rules stalled praised the proposed action.

"The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact, to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Read More..

Debt Limit Negotiating Tactic? No Negotiating

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden walk away from the podium after Obama made a statement regarding the passage of the fiscal cliff bill in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Analysis

New for 2013: In the Washington, D.C. fiscal wars we’ve gone from everything must be on the table to politicians declaring they won’t debate.

The fiscal cliff deal either averted disaster or compounded the problem, depending on who you ask. It certainly created new mini-cliffs in a few months as Congress and the president square off on the debt ceiling, spending cuts and government funding. But it also made sure the vast majority of Americans won’t see as big a tax hike as they might have.

President Obama was pretty clear late on New Year’s night as he reacted to Congress’s passage of a bill to take a turn away from the fiscal cliff. He won’t negotiate with Republicans about the debt ceiling.

“Now, one last point I want to make,” said the president, before wrapping up and hopping on Air Force One for a redeye to Hawaii. “While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up through the laws that they passed.”

(Read more here about the Fiscal Cliff)

That’s pretty clear. No debt ceiling negotiation. Then he added for emphasis: ”Let me repeat: We can’t not pay bills that we’ve already incurred. If Congress refuses to give the United States government the ability to pay these bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic — far worse than the impact of a fiscal cliff.”

But in Washington, saying you won’t do something these days has almost become like an opening bid. At least, that’s how Republicans are treating the president’s line in the sand.

“The president may not want to have a fight about government spending over the next few months, but it’s the fight he is going to have because it’s a debate the country needs,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, in an op-Ed on Yahoo! News about 36 hours later. “For the sake of our future, the president must show up to this debate early and convince his party to do something that neither he nor they have been willing to do until now.”

“We simply cannot increase the nation’s borrowing limit without committing to long overdue reforms to spending programs that are the very cause of our debt,” McConnell said.

The national debt is soon set to reach $16.4 trillion. That’s not a problem that can be solved with one bill or budget. And the two sides will have to figure out some sort of way to talk about entitlement/social safety net reform – meaning things like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security – in addition to cutting spending and, most importantly, hope for an improving economy, to deal with those deficits.

House Speaker John Boehner, who has several times now failed to reach a big, broad fiscal deal with President Obama, told colleagues, according to The Hill newspaper, that he’s done with secret White House negotiations. He wants to stick with the constitutional way of doing things, with hearings and bills that are debated on Capitol Hill rather than hatched by the vice president and Senate Republicans.

Okay. Obama won’t negotiate on the debt ceiling. McConnell won’t not negotiate on the debt ceiling. Boehner doesn’t to do things by the book.

But McConnell won’t negotiate on taxes any more.

“Predictably,” McConnell had written earlier in his post, “the president is already claiming that his tax hike on the ‘rich’ isn’t enough. I have news for him: the moment that he and virtually every elected Democrat in Washington signed off on the terms of the current arrangement, it was the last word on taxes. That debate is over.”

It’s a new chapter in the ongoing fiscal saga in Washington. Back when the two sides were talking about a grand bargain or a big deal – some sort of all-inclusive reform that would right the listing deficit with one flip of the rudder – the popular trope was that “everything must be on the table.” That’s basically how Obama put it back in the summer of 2011 when he and Boehner failed to reach a grand bargain. He wanted higher taxes – they were calling them revenues back then. More recently, after Obama won the election and when he and Boehner were trying to hammer out another grand bargain to avert the fiscal cliff, Boehner wanted entitlements on the table. That means he wanted to find ways to curb future spending.

Both sides are declaring they won’t debate certain points, but this far – a full two months – before the mini-cliffs start, those are easier declarations to make than they will be when the government is in danger of defaulting or shutting down.

Even though they’re trying to take elements off the table, both men hope that coming negotiations can be a little more cordial and a little less down-to-the wire.

“Over the next two months they need to deliver the same kind of bipartisan resolution to the spending problem we have now achieved on revenue — before the 11th hour,” wrote McConnell.

“The one thing that I think, hopefully, in the New Year we’ll focus on is seeing if we can put a package like this together with a little bit less drama, a little less brinksmanship, not scare the heck out of folks quite as much,” said Obama.

That’ll be tough if neither side will talk about what the other side wants to talk about.

Read More..

Lebanon asks for $180 million to aid Syrian refugees

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon, now a haven for 170,000 Syrians fleeing civil war, has asked foreign donors for $180 million to help care for them and said it will register and recognize refugees after a year-long hiatus.

The Beirut government has officially sought to "dissociate" itself from the 21-month-old struggle in Syria, nervous about the destabilizing impact of the increasingly sectarian conflict in its bigger neighbor on its own delicate communal balance.

But there has been pressure from humanitarian agencies and the public to do more to help Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

The cabinet, which approved the measures after a six-hour session on Thursday night, rejected a proposal by Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, a Christian, to close the border to stop the influx into Lebanon, where mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian refugees now account for almost 5 percent of the population.

Bassil belongs to the Free Patriotic Movement, part of a political alliance with Shi'ite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

However, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech on Thursday that the border should stay open for refugees.

Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour told reporters after the cabinet debate: "The Lebanese state will register the refugees...and guarantee aid and protection for the actual refugees in Lebanon."

Until now Syrian refugees have found shelter with local communities in Lebanon, rather than being housed in camps, as in the other two main host countries, Jordan and Turkey. Abu Faour did not say if camps would now be constructed.

"FIRST CONCRETE PLAN"

Lebanon's ambivalent attitude to the new arrivals is partly a legacy of its own 15-year civil war, a conflict fuelled by sectarian tensions which linger on, especially over the presence of 400,000 Sunni Palestinian refugees in the country.

Ninette Kelley, representative of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) in Lebanon, said the government's action was "the first concrete plan" it had presented to the international community.

She said Lebanon had previously given formal recognition to Syrian refugees who entered via official border points, but not to those who had crossed illegally, either because they feared authorities or to escape violence near their homes.

This group accounts for around 30 percent of all Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the government's decision should allow them to register for legal refugee status, Kelley said.

"Initially the government jointly registered Syrian refugees with UNHCR through its High Relief Commission. It stopped in 2011 as the numbers became larger due to insufficient capacity," she said, adding that joint registration would now resume.

The United Nations says more than 560,000 Syrians have fled abroad. In Lebanon, many not hosted by friends or relations live in shacks of wood and plastic sheeting. In the southern city of Tyre, they brave the winter cold and wash in the sea.

Lebanese politics is marred by sectarian divisions that have been inflamed by the mainly Sunni revolt against Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is derived from Shi'ite Islam.

Syria-related violence has flared periodically in the northern port of Tripoli, which has a Sunni majority and an Alawite minority, as well as in Beirut and Sidon in the south.

Assad's Lebanese opponents blame Syria, which stationed troops in Lebanon from 1976 to 2005, for the unresolved killing of Lebanese security official Wissam al-Hassan in October.

Hassan had been leading an investigation that implicated Damascus and Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni.

(Reporting by Issam Abdallah, Oliver Holmes and Ayat Basma; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Read More..

Spare elephants or I'm off to Russia: Bardot

PARIS: French cinema legend Brigitte Bardot on Friday threatened to follow Gerard Depardieu to Russia unless two elephants under threat of being put down are granted a reprieve.

In a surreal twist to the saga over Depardieu's move into tax exile, the veteran animal rights campaigner said she would emulate his request for Russian nationality unless authorities intervened to save Baby and Nepal.

The two elephants face being put down because they have been diagnosed with tuberculosis and have been deemed a threat to the health of other animals and visitors to the Tete d'Or zoo in Lyon.

City authorities ordered the elephants to be put down last month but a petition organised by their original owner, circus master Gilbert Edelstein, resulted in them being granted a temporary reprieve over Christmas.

Bardot said in a statement she would be leaving France if the reprieve was not made permanent.

"If the powers that be have the cowardice and the shamelessness to kill Baby and Nepal... I have decided to take Russian nationality and quit this country that is nothing more an animal cemetery," Bardot said.

Bardot, 77, has been a high-profile supporter of Depardieu in his spat with the French government over his decision to take up residence in neighbouring Belgium for tax reasons.

She said last month that her fellow actor, who was branded "pathetic" by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, had been the "victim of extremely unfair persecution".

-AFP/fl

Read More..

No consensus on death penalty for rape

NEW DELHI: Central and state governments today failed to evolve a consensus on death penalty for rape convicts even as they seem to have agreed on the definition of juvenile by bringing down the age bar to 16 from 18 years.

The day-long meeting of chief secretaries and DGPs, convened by the Centre in the wake of the gang rape of a girl in Delhi, discussed threadbare various ways to check crime against women and agreed to take steps for protection of women and initiating speedy trial and conviction of criminals.

"There is no consensus on amending the law to include capital punishment for rape. One or two chief secretaries have suggested but majority kept mum on the issue," said a senior officer who attended the meeting.

Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde said all suggestions, including death penalty for rape, put forward by the chief secretaries and DGPs would be considered by the central government.

The representatives of state governments and top home ministry officials said rape convicts should be sentenced to life till death without any leniency or without parole.

Government had in December 4, 2012, introduced a bill in Parliament seeking to amend the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, by replacing the word 'rape' by the words 'sexual assault' to make the offence of sexual assault gender-neutral and also widening its scope. It proposes to enhance the punishment from the present seven years jail to life.

There was a general consensus on the definition of juvenile by bringing the age bar to 16 from 18 years in the conference.

One of the six accused in the Delhi gang rape case was juvenile and many people fear that he may escape punishment for the crime because of his juvenile status.

Read More..

Chelsea Clinton Raises Profile During Mom's Illness

While Hillary Clinton was in the hospital it was daughter Chelsea -- not the secretary of state or the former president Bill Clinton -- who spoke for the family.

She, along with the State Department, doled out what little information the family wanted to share in a series of tweets and when her mother was released from the hospital, it was Chelsea who delivered the thanks on behalf of her parents, tweeting her gratitude to the doctors as well as those who kept her mother in their thoughts while she recovered from a blood clot.

When Hillary Clinton leaves office, possibly at the end of this month, it will be the first time since 1982 that a Clinton will not be holding a public office.

The watch will be on whether Hillary Clinton makes another run for the White House in 2016, but almost inevitably people will also be watching to see if Chelsea Clinton decides to run for office, too.

"Americans always look for dynasties: Bush, Kennedy, Cuomo, Clinton … it's some kind of continuity. There will always be pressure on her to run for public office," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political strategist in New York.

"She's learning from the two best politicians in recent American history and she understands when to hold them and when to fold them," Sheinkopf said.

That sense of dynasty could also present a significant hurdle.

James Devaney/Getty Images

Secretary of State Clinton: Mystery Health Issues Watch Video

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Undergoing Blood-Thinning Therapy Watch Video

"She's got to A, demonstrate that she has the charisma of her father, or B, demonstrate that she has the policy chops of her mother. And I think like most people she is somewhere in between," a former Hillary Clinton aide from her 2008 campaign said. "People are judging her through each of her parents and it's an impossible standard."

Chelsea Clinton, 32, has inched towards a possible political career in recent statements and has become more politically active.

In an interview with Vogue published in August she was more open to it than she has been in the past, telling the magazine, "Before my mom's (presidential) campaign I would have said no," but "now I don't know."

"I believe that engaging in the political process is part of being a good person. And I certainly believe that part of helping to build a better world is ensuring that we have political leaders who are committed to that premise. So if there were to be a point where it was something I felt called to do and I didn't think there was someone who was sufficiently committed to building a healthier, more just, more equitable, more productive world? Then that would be a question I'd have to ask and answer."

Clinton also spoke of a change in her private to public life:

"Historically I deliberately tried to lead a private life in the public eye," she told the magazine. "And now I am trying to lead a purposefully public life."

Besides her work as a special correspondent with NBC, Chelsea Clinton has taken on high profile roles with her father's Clinton Global Initiative. She sits on several corporate boards and has both moderated and sat on panels discussing both women in politics and childhood obesity, among other issues.

She has also worked toward making same-sex marriage legal in New York last year, as well as gay marriage referendums in Maine, Maryland, Wisconsin and Washington state, all of which were successful in November. She has also been active in superstorm Sandy recovery, most notably delivering aid to the devastated Rockaways with her father.

Read More..

Myanmar says jets used against Kachin rebels

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military has used jets to attacks rebel fighters in northern Kachin state, the government said on Thursday, its first admission of an intensification of a conflict that has raised doubts about its reformist credentials.

Rebel sources have reported aerial bombings, shelling and even the use of chemical weapons since December 28 after the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) ignored an ultimatum to stop blocking an army supply route in the hilly, resource-rich state where more than 50,000 people have been displaced.

Official newspapers said that air support was used on December 30 to thwart KIA fighters who had occupied a hill and were attacking logistics units of the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar's military is known.

"The Tatmadaw troops cleared Point-771 hill and its surrounding areas where the KIA troops were attacking the Tatmadaw logistic troops," the New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece, said. "The air cover was used in the attack."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced concern on Wednesday over reports of helicopters and fighter jets being used in the state bordering China. The KIA said the attacks were intended to clear the path for an assault on its headquarters in Laisa.

Ban called on Myanmar's government to "desist from any action that could endanger the lives of civilians" and reiterated demands for humanitarian aid groups to be granted access, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said in a statement.

President Thein Sein's quasi-civilian administration insists it wants a ceasefire and political dialogue. It says troops have acted only in self-defense and on Thursday denied having plans to seize the KIA's stronghold.

DOMINANT MILITARY

The escalation of fighting has raised doubts about the sincerity of the reformist ex-generals running the government and the extent of their power in a country the size of Britain and France plagued by decades of internal conflict.

Some analysts and diplomats say central government is either not fully committed to peace with the KIA or unable to assert control over the military, which still dominates politics and the economy despite formally ceding power in March 2011.

Colonel James Lum Dau, a Thai-based spokesman for the KIA's political wing, said Kachin officials on the ground had reported up to 300 people killed in air strikes.

"We are in a defensive position. Right now more people are suffering not only bombings, but shelling and spraying of chemical weapons with helicopter gunships and jets," he said. "Only god knows what to do. We are praying."

It is difficult for journalists to independently verify accounts from the two sides.

Fighting erupted in Kachin in June 2010, ending a 17-year truce, and has continued even as government negotiators have agreed ceasefires elsewhere with ethnic Shan, Chin, Mon and Karen militias after decades of fighting in border areas.

Mistrust runs deep between the military and the KIA, which was once backed by China, and multiple rounds of talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire have gone nowhere. Analysts say a history of bad blood and a battle for control of resources, including highly lucrative jade, could be stoking the unrest.

Zaw Htay, a senior official in Thein Sein's office, told Reuters no air strikes had taken place but K-8 trainer jets had provided cover fire to protect ground troops from rebel attacks. The military, he said, had no intention of seizing the KIA's headquarters.

"The president has said this and at the same time he has invited KIA leaders to come and talk with him in Naypyitaw, but they still haven't responded," Zaw Htay said.

(Additional reporting by Paul Carsten in Bangkok; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alan Raybould)

Read More..

Guang Ming Industrial Building at Paya Lebar up for collective sale

SINGAPORE: Guang Ming Industrial Building, located at No 65 Upper Paya Lebar Road, has been put up for collective sale.

The freehold industrial 'white site' has a land area of 19,789 square feet.

Its marketing agent Cushman & Wakefield says the site is expected to fetch more than S$58 million.

Among the likely interested parties for the site include small to mid-sized developers and those companies looking for a site to locate their corporate headquarters, adds Cushman and Wakefield.

Developers can build up to a gross floor area of some 70,000 sq ft, including some 20,000 sq ft of retail and commercial space.

This is based on a maximum allowable plot ratio of 3.5.

Cushman & Wakefield's Director of Investment Sales Christina Sim says prime locations like Tai Seng and Paya Lebar will make the building a "hot commodity".

She adds that "the special 'white zoning' of the site will give an added boost to its development potential.

The tender will close on 5 February 2013.

- CNA/de

Read More..

Nine more succumb to cold wave in North

NEW DELHI: North India was gripped by bone chilling cold today as temperatures nosedived across the region claiming nine more lives.

Capital Delhi recorded a maximum temperature of 12.7 degrees celsius, 8 less than normal and a minimum of 4.4 degrees celsius, 3 less than the usual.

Kashmir Valley continued to reel under intense cold as temperatures across the state plunged further, even as the fringes of the famous Dal Lake here were frozen for the first time this winter.

The summer capital Srinagar registered the coldest night of the season for the second time this winter as minimum temperature dropped to minus four degrees Celsius.

Cold wave continued unabated in Uttar Pradesh as nine more persons succumbed to the chill in the state, taking the death toll this winter to 116.

Two persons each died in Deoria, Chandauli and Gazipur districts, followed by one each in Bijnor, Jhansi and Barabanki, officials said.

Najibabad was the coldest place in the state where the minimum temperature was recorded at 2.4 degrees, the Met office said, adding that maximum temperatures also remained below normal by 5 to 11 degrees over some parts of western UP.

Night temperatures plummeted in most parts of the region, including Allahabad, Faizabad, Moradabad, Agra, Meerut, Kanpur, Lucknow, Bareilly and Jhansi divisions.

Mercury plummeted in parts of Rajasthan where Mount Abu recorded zero degrees Celsius.

Bikaner also recorded a low of 0.4 degree Celsius. Intense cold continued its grip on most parts of Punjab and Haryana today as a thick blanket of fog played havoc with normal life in the region.

The minimum temperatures hovered between four degrees celsius below normal to four notches above normal in most parts of Punjab and Haryana, the Met office said here.

In the plains of Punjab and Haryana, Narnaul reeled under a low of 0.5 degrees celsius, which was four notches below normal making it the coldest place in the region.

While Karnal braved a low of 4.2 degrees celsius, three notches below normal, the minimum temperature at Chandigarh was 4.7 degrees celsius.

Among other places in the twin agrarian states, Bhiwani settled at a low of 4.8 degrees celsius followed by five degrees celsius at Hisar, 5.2 degrees celsius at Patiala, one notch below normal, 5.6 degrees celsius at Ludhiana and 6 degrees celsius at Ambala.

The night temperatures were up by an average upto two degrees celsius in the region, the Met office said.

However, a thick blanket of fog in the morning at most places in the region affected all modes of travelling, disrupting normal life.

Read More..