As India and Switzerland prepare to renegotiate the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement, the Swiss government said it was confident that the pact would be finalized by next year and enable New Delhi to seek details about black money stashed in banks there. "Yes" was the emphatic answer of Switzerland's vice-president Doris Leuthard, when asked whether renegotiating the treaty, which ...Read More

CHENNAI: A total of 36 bonded laborers working in stone crushing units in Karur and Salem districts have walked free, thanks to a timely intervention of the Madras high court, which asked the authorities to rescue these laborers and rehabilitate them. A division bench comprising Justice FM Ibrahim Kalifulla and Justice R Banumathi had directed the collectors and ...Read More

A day after the Delhi High Court’s ruling decriminalising homosexual relationship between two consenting adults, three Cabinet ministers sat down to ‘analyse’ the judgment and prepare the government’s response to the order. Home Minister P Chidambaram, Law Minister M Veerappa Moily and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad met for about an hour in North Block to formulate ...Read More

Mumbai, May 26 (PTI) The Bombay High Court today granted anticipatory bail to Pakistani singer Adnan Sami in connection with the harassment case filed by his wife. Sami will have to produce two sureties of Rs 15,000 to get bail if arrested. He will also have to surrender his passport after his next week's foreign tour. Sessions court had last ...Read More

California's supreme court backed a ban on gay marriage on Tuesday, upholding a voter-approved proposition defining marriage as between a man and a woman, but said the marriages last year of 18,000 same-sex couples were still legal. The court, which last year unexpectedly opened the door to same-sex unions in the most populous U.S. state, bowed to the majority of California voters who passed the ban ...Read More

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the display of pictorial warnings on all tobacco product packages, to be implemented with effect from May 31, 2009. A Bench comprising Justice B.N. Agrawal and Justice G.S. Singhvi did so after perusing the minutes of the meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on the subject following allegations that the law was diluted to favour the tobacco ...Read More

Mumbai: The three main accused persons in the November 26, 2008 terror strikes in Mumbai will face charges of criminal conspiracy to wage war against the Government of India, among other grave offences. The number of charges total 86. The Special Sessions Court here on Wednesday framed charges against the accused. They include Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed, and 35 people who ...Read More