Indian tennis star Sania Mirza is all set to marry Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik in April, two months after she broke her engagement with childhood friend Sohrab Mirza.

A statement by Sania's father Imran Mirza also stated that 23-year-old Sania and the 28-year-old all-rounder will be based in Dubai, where Malik is a resident.

"This is a unique case where the husband and wife will represent their respective countries in sport," said Mirza in Hyderabad.

"My wedding is going to be the biggest day of my life. I have been in the constant glare for too long and would appreciate privacy at this very personal moment in my life," Sania was quoted as having said in a statement.

"I hope to be fully fit to represent India in the Commonwealth and Asian Games that are scheduled for later this year," she said.

Sania's mother, Nasima said, "Marriages are made in heaven."

Incidentally, Shoaib was earlier accused of marrying another Hyderabad girl, Ayesha Siddiqui, in 2002 over phone even though the cricketer said he was merely engaged to her.

Ayesha's father had also threatened to sue Malik accusing him of ditching the girl.

Malik's brother-in-law Imran Z Malik said the marriage proposal was taken by the cricketer's mother to India.

He said the entire family will leave for India on April 7 and formal nikaah ceremony would take place on April 10 or 11.

The 'Walima' or reception is expected to be held in Lahore on April 16 or 17.

Pakistani media reports said Sania and Malik fell in love six-and-half months back and it could be the reason for the breaking up of Sania's engagement with Sohrab.

Sania, who had got engaged to 24-year-old Sohrab in July last year, broke off citing incompatibilty.

"We were friends for years but found ourselves incompatible.

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An illegal immigrant from India who carried out a frenzied knife attack on his former girlfriend in London in July 2008 after harassing her over a prolonged period, was on Wednesday found guilty of murder and faces a life sentence.
    
Gemma Dorman, 24, was stabbed repeatedly outside a Thai restaurant by former lover Vikramgit Singh, 25.
    
Dorman had been having dinner with her fiance in south-west London, when she went out to get cash.
    
Singh was waiting for her and attacked her at a bus shelter with a 7 inch kitchen knife, the Old Bailey court was told.
    
Richard Whittam, prosecuting lawyer, said: "It was a brutal attack on a defenceless woman."
    
Two months before the murder, Dorman had told the police that Singh was stalking her and bombarding her with hundreds of text messages.
    
Her mother had also complained about Singh.
    
The court was told that Singh was "infatuated" with Dorman and paid 200 pounds to have a large heart-shaped tattoo with her name in it on his back.
    
In a letter to her proclaiming his love, he reportedly wrote: "Fish can't live without water. I can't live without
you." 

Singh claimed in court that he had given her cash totalling 260,000 pounds as well as gifts including jewellery and computers.
    
He said they had planned to set up home together and get married, but she allegedly dumped him after he ran out of money.
    
Singh admitted the stabbing but claimed he could not remember it. He denied murder, claiming provocation, diminished responsibility, and lack of intent.
    
But his defence was rejected by the jury, which found him guilty of murder by an 11-1 majority.
    
He now faces a life sentence.

 Before the killing, he bombarded her with text messages and letters and tattooed her name in large letters across his back.
    
Singh, of Ruskin Road in Southall, became obsessed with Miss Dorman while she was working for Vixens Escort Agency between July 2005 and June 2007.
    
The pair began a relationship but Miss Dorman later broke it off, saying she never wanted to see him again.
    
After a barrage of love letters and text messages, Miss Dorman and mother reported him to the police for harassment.
    
In one letter he wrote, "I can't do without you, I love you so much. Please try to understand my feelings."

Miss Dorman was in the Amazing Thai restaurant with her new fiance the night she was killed, on July 31, 2008.
    
Witnesses said they saw Singh, who wanted to marry her himself, waiting nearby and attack her when she left the restaurant to get cash.
    
Giving evidence, he said he could not remember stabbing Miss Dorman, but went into a trance thinking of her having sex with another men.
    
Outside court, Detective Inspector Mick Norman from the Metropolitan Police's homicide and serious crime command, said: "Vikramjit Singh became obsessed with Gemma to a point where he could not accept that she had moved on with her life".
    
Dorman met her future killer on a job in Southall. Vikramjit Singh had hired her out for his flatmate, but after a chat and a quick drink he claims the two began seeing each other as girlfriend and boyfriend.
    
Singh had a troubled life. Giving evidence in court last week, he told how he was repeatedly beaten by his father during his childhood in Punjab in India. His mother was mentally ill and would often fail to recognise people.  At the age of 12, he slit his wrists.
    
When he was 16, Singh's mother paid an agent to take him to UK for a better life - but instead he was dumped along with 12 other boys in  Moscow with no access to food.
    
He led a Spartan life, moving into a shared room with another man and keeping his earnings in a suitcase under his bed. He never went out, and had never had sex before he met Miss Dorman.
 

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Seventeen Indians have been sentenced to death by Sharjah's Shariah Court for killing a Pakistani man and injuring three others in a vicious attack last year.
    
Judge Yousuf Al Hamadi sentenced the 17 men to death after all evidence, including DNA tests, showed they had knifed the Pakistani to death, Khaleej Times reported today.
    
The victim had died of his wounds after he was stabbed repeatedly on various parts of his body and had also suffered brain damage, police said.
    
The attack in January last year followed a fight over the control of the illegal liquor business in Al Sajaa area of Sharjah, one of the emirates of UAE, the paper said.
    
The police had said the suspects had attempted to kill three other compatriots of the victim, but they managed to escape and were rushed to Kuwaiti Hospital for treatment.
    
The convicted men are aged between 17 and 30 years.
    
According to the three Pakistanis who survived, 50 people set upon them with knives on that fateful day last year.
    
Police had rushed to the area and arrested the 17, who had allegedly led the attack. The others were let off due to lack of evidence.
   
During court hearings, all the suspects confessed they had fought with and murdered the victim. Forensics reports and DNA tests also proved their role in the crime. 
 

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Mohammad Ameen is a proud father today, though his son is long dead and buried.

What has changed for the 55-year-old from Sanjarpur village in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh is a response to a Right to Information plea that his son, Atif Ameen, may not be an Indian Mujahideen terrorist on the suspicion of which he was gunned down in the controversial Batla House encounter on September 19, 2008.

According to the autopsy report, which was revealed after an RTI plea, the bullet wounds on the body of Atif - who was a Jamia Millia Islamia student and used to put up with his friends at the L-18 Jamia Nagar suggest that the allegations of him being killed in a gunfight might be wrong.

But Mohammad Ameen is concerned only about the fact that now nobody would dare call his son a terrorist. "No report can bring back my dead son. But it has at least rendered some authenticity to our claim about his innocence," he told MiD DAY. The sudden death of his young son has taken its toll on him but Mohammad Ameen remains resolute to restore the honour of his family.

"I am really thankful that we have so many people supporting us. I have read the post-mortem report, but still I want a full judicial inquiry into the matter," he said. "The police labelled my son a terrorist. But then my son is not alone. In the past, so many people have been meted out the same treatment and this will continue," Mohammad Ameen said. He says it a conspiracy against the minority community. "They are picking on those who can do well in the future."

Mohammed Ameen's mood changes frequently and sometimes he becomes reclusive, perhaps lost in his thoughts about Atif. The suffering and hardship faced by him is reflected in his reluctance to face the media.

The RTI also came as a relief to the family of Mohammad Sajid, roommate of Atif who was fell to the bullets of the Special Cell cops. The police on the other hand lost senior Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma.

Sajid, who had never gone out of his hometown in 17 years, moved to Delhi so that he could be like his role model and cousin Atif. A second year intermediate student, Sajid left his home on July 10 for the first time so that he could join coaching classes in Delhi, as there were no proper arrangements in Sanjarpur, said Dr Ansar-ul Hassan, father of Sajid.

"My son was innocent. He went to study there (Delhi) and he spent just two months in the city before being shot. We got to know through media reports about his death in an encounter. The autopsy report clearly shows it was a fake encounter," Dr Hassan, a BUMS doctor, said.

Dr Javed Akhtar, president of Association for Welfare, Medical, Educational and Legal Assistance (AWMELA), an umbrella organisation of eminent people from Azamgarh, said: "They have clearly seen injury marks/abrasion etc on the bodies that could only be the result of brutal torture prior to shooting at point blank range."

He also ridiculed the "ever changing" police version vis-a-vis the fatal injuries to Inspector Sharma. Dr Akhtar demanded an impartial probe into the incident and emphasised the need for review of all the allegations against Atif and Sajid "in the light of this report."
 

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A six-year-old boy found an unexploded World War II incendiary bomb while on a walk in a Berlin woods with his grandfather, police said.
    
The boy spotted the roughly 24 inch long cylinder with a red head casing in a wooded area of Berlin's Kopenick neighbourhood on Sunday, which his 62-year-old grandfather recognised as being a WWII-era bomb.
    
After being contacted by the grandfather, police bomb specialists arrived, confirmed it to be a WWII incendiary bomb, and removed it.
    
Berlin police plan to award the boy with a stuffed animal for his find, a spokesman told AFP. 
 

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The first chapter of the Gen Next Gandhi vs Gandhi saga in Uttar Pradesh is being scripted today, with newly-appointed BJP secretary Varun Gandhi arriving in Saharanpur with the blessings of the RSS to go forth and take on his older cousin Rahul Gandhi.
 
This is Varun's first public appearance after being given an important party post and assignment and all eyes are also on him to see how different his demeanour and words will be with the weight of party designation.
 
So far, Varun has been noticed most for his hate speeches during elections campaigns, and there were more than a few raised eyebrows when he was given a party post.
 
But new BJP chief Nitin Gadkari has defended the inclusion of Varun as secretary telling NDTV in an interview recently: "Varun should be given a chance, why hold the past against him?"

The biggest factor that has worked in favour of Varun, a man who only last year was jailed for his hate speeches and one that the BJP had sought to distance itself from, is perhaps his surname.
 
With Rahul Gandhi making waves and much political progress with his earthy approach in UP, the RSS believe 
 

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Three mine owners, on whose plea the Supreme Court recently stayed mining operations of a company owned by the Reddy brothers in Andhra Pradesh, were attacked by an eight-member gang in Bellary on Monday, police said.

The unidentified men attacked Tappal Ganesh and two of his brothers, owners of the TNR mining company, when they were waiting outside a hotel to meet the Survey of India team set up by the apex court to determine whether reserved forest areas have been encroached by the Obulapuram Mining Company, owned by G Janardhana Reddy. The Reddy brothers - Janardhana and Karunakara -- are Karnataka ministers and mining magnates

The attackers, who came in a car and were armed with sticks, also beat up four journalists present there before fleeing the scene, police said.

The five-member Survey of India team, which has been camping in the city, was holding discussions with forest and mines and geology department officials in the private hotel and the three representatives of TNR mining company, including Ganesh, were there to meet the team.

Police rushed to the spot and shifted the injured mine owners to a hospital.

The incident triggered panic in the city.

Police said they were investigating into the incident. 

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Huge blasts were heard at the Army base at Panagarh in Burdwan district of West Bengal after its ammunition depot caught fire at around 1:45 am.

There are no reports of any casualties and the fire is under control now. No more explosions have been heard in the last few hours.

A quick reaction team was called in immediately and the fire was brought under control by 3 am. Panic stricken villagers who fled from the area are now returning to their homes.

An inquiry has been ordered and the Army is still assessing the scale of the damage.

The Panagarh Army weapons' depot is one of the biggest in eastern India. Both the Indian Army and Air Force have their establishment here.

An airport is also located here which is extensively used by the Air Force

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As the Obama Administration concluded its two-day strategic dialogue with Pakistan, a report prepared by the Washington based Institute for Science and international security says Islamabad may be operating a second nuclear reactor under the country's nuclear weapons programme.

The report cites GoogleEarth satellite images showing steam distorting the view of some cooling tower fan blades at the second plutonium production reactor at Khushab, which indicates that the reactor is in some state of initial operation such as a power start-up.

Only a few nations in the world have nuclear production capability, the start-up operation of the second Khushab reactor, leading to a possible doubling of plutonium output in Pakistan, is significant.

The report also said that Pakistan had started constructing the Khushab-II reactor back in 2002 and in 2007 construction activity for a third reactor was noticed in satellite images.

"For many years all Pakistan had was its uranium enrichment programme. Sometime in 2002, Pakistan began building a second reactor and then again sometime around 2006-07, Pakistan began building a third reactor at Khushabh. So what we are seeing here is a really massive expansion of Pakistan's plutonium production programme. And the issue here is that Pakistan does not really need a new reactor as it has a unranium enrichment programme and a plutonium production programme," said Paul Brannan, Senior Analyst, ISIS, Washington, DC.  
 

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If you are in Chennai, there is a good chance that the medicine you buy from your local drug store might have expired, even though the label says otherwise.

It may be called the drug scam of Tamil Nadu. The modus operandi is simple: Buy discarded drugs before they are disposed of, change the labels and distribute them again to retail outlets.

The first symptom of this rot was seen a few months ago when a three-year-old Krithika died after taking expired medicine bought from a local pharmacy.

"They said it's just two months after the expiry. My daughter paid a heavy price. I've lost her," said Kalaivani, Krithika's mother.

Expired drugs that could have sold for over a crore rupees have now been confiscated following a crackdown by the police and drug control authorities. A hunt is on for the kingpin.

"They can have expired drugs, it's part of the process but they can't sell it. Manufacturers have to follow the due process to dispose them," said Dr V K Subburaj, Principal Secretary.

There's a severe shortage of drug inspectors, there are just around hundred to monitor forty thousand shops. Officials say there is no need for panic but it may take a long for public to take their medicine with confidence.  
 

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