Photo: Patrika

Parliament on Wednesday allowed for External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to defend charges levelled against her. In a spirited fight back, Swaraj tore into Congress, saying it had helped Bofors accused Ottavio Quattrocchi and Bhopal gas leak accused Warren Anderson flee from India. Speaking in Lok Sabha during a discussion on the Lalit Modi row, she specifically responded to Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi's charge that she had got money to help the IPL founder. She claimed that neither her husband nor her daughter made any money from Modi. Instead she accused former finance minister P Chidambaram of conflict of interest when his wife Nalini Chidambaram represented the accused in the Shraddha scam case.

Swaraj has been battling charges of conflict of interest on account of helping Lalit Modi acquire his travel papers from British authorities. Congress stalled all parliamentary proceedings during the ongoing monsoon session demanding her resignation.

A day after the Lok Sabha saw a tumultous debate on External Affairs Minister Swaraj's involvement in providing travel papers to scam tainted IPL founder Lalit Modi, both Houses of Parliament were adjourned sine die. However, the adjournments didn't end the political slugfest between BJP and Congress. Both parties took out their separate protests marches. While the Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said that the ruling party didn't allow the Opposition to question Swaraj on relevant grounds, the BJP has taken out a protest march to oppose Congress' boycott of Parliament and for not allowing the passing of Goods and Services Tax bill. The complete washout of the monsoon session comes a day after Congress was defeated in an adjournment motion moved by the party against Swaraj. Congress has been stalling the Parliament over the Lalit Modi row demanding resignations of Swaraj and Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje for helping Modi acquire his travel papers from British authorities.

At least eight people were injured in a grenade blast near a mosque in Shopian district while another grenade was detected and defused near the house of a Hizbul Mujahidden militant. Police suspect that militants had "planted" the grenade outside the mosque in Trenz locality of Shopian, 52 kms from here, in the wee hours. "The grenade was kept on roadside in a steel glass after removing its pin. Someone touched it, triggering the blast at around 6 am," a police official said. He said eight civilians who had come out of the mosque after morning prayers were injured in the explosion. All the injured were admitted to a hospital in Shopian, he added.

Photo: Kuni Takahashi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In a temporary relief for Maggi, the Bombay High Court has ruled that the ban imposed by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India on the popular noodle brand is not sustainable and tenable. The Court has set aside the ban order. The court has also ruled that samples of all nine variants of Maggi have to be put through a fresh tests in three different labs in Mohali, Jaipur and Mohali within six weeks. However, it is not clear if during this period, Nestle is entitled to sell Maggi noodles. What is understood is that if the new results show the level of lead in Maggi is under permissible limit then Nestle would be free to manufacture and sell Maggi noodles and its variants again. On 12 August, the Department of Consumer Affairs, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution had filed a complaint under Section 12(1) (d) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 in the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC).

Photo: AFP

At least 44 people have been killed and 520 others injured, 66 of them critically, in twin blasts at a warehouse containing chemical and toxic materials in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin. The blasts ripped through the Ruihai warehouse, which stores dangerous goods, at 11.20 pm local time on 12 August, following a fire report half an hour earlier. Fireballs erupted then ignited more explosions in companies nearby, according to rescuers, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The massive blasts were caused by combustible and explosive goods stored in containers at the warehouse, official People's Daily online reported. Chemicals at a container terminal exploded in Binhai New Area in Tianjin. State-run CCTV showed footage of massive explosions in the city. More than 10,000 people were reportedly evacuated from the nearby areas.

Photo: PTI

For the first time since September 2013, the rupee breached the 65 mark against the dollar, on fresh dollar demand from banks and importers. Ever since China devalued the Yuan, the rupee has been under pressure. The rupee briefly recovered to 64.64 before again crashing below 65. At 3:30, the rupee was trading at 65.0450.

File photo

According to media sources, Modi government is planning to call a special five-day session of the Parliament on 31 August to discuss GST. The entire monsoon session was washed out because of protests by opposition and the bill got stalled in the Rajya Sabha. However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has refused to confirm this decision. The ruling BJP government has set April as a deadline for itself to pass the bill.

Photo: Patrika

Pakistan's national security advisor (NSA) Sartaj Aziz has confirmed that he will visit India for talks on 23 August. This is the first attempt by Pakistan to reach out to India after a long time. It is expected that Pakistan will talk about unrest in Balochistan and India will raise the issue of recent terrorist attacks in Gurdaspur and Udhampur. A Hindustan Times report suggested that India might also talk about slow pace of 26/11 trial and bail of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.