Its closest relatives are found in Africa, which shows that it existed before the Indian subcontinent broke away from the African landmass.

The remarkable discovery, set to be published in the upcoming issue of Proceedings of Royal Society of London, came after massive soil-digging surveys in about 250 localities spread over five years in each Northeast Indian state. The work is the most extensive systematic programme of dedicated caecilian surveys ever attempted.

“We believe it was a very well trained person who committed the attack and the target was the Israeli diplomat’s wife. The investigations are on,” he said. The home minister, who did not want to hazard a guess on the group or individual responsible for the attack said: “We are not pointing fingers at anyone or any group yet, but we condemn the attack in the strongest terms.”

A special investigation by the IBN network has revealed just how difficult it is to secure admission if you do not have the ability to pay up. At the Swami Vivekananda School in Anand Vihar, East Delhi, parents are asked for Rs 50000 over the Rs 18000 monthly fee, even after the child has got admission.

The clarification came a day after the Home Ministry criticised the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for a goof up in pursuing the case and arresting an “informer” as a terrorist.
The Home Ministry on Monday claimed that one of the arrested, Naqee Ahmed Sheikh of Darbhanga in Bihar, was in fact an informer who worked for Delhi Police and Intelligence Bureau (IB). A day after the Ministry took a U-turn.

This is the first such link in the capital, which is expected to be functional by 2017. In the years to come, the monorail will also roll out in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Jalandhar in Punjab. The monorail is most successful in Japan. Malaysia and the United States of America, too, use monorail extensively in crowded areas.

“The Japanese government has conveyed its commitment to invest $ 4.5 billion in the project,” said a top government official. Noda and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh are likely to address a joint press conference after inking the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

The government had already cleared Rs 17,500 crore investment for building trunk infrastructure in the project earlier this year.

DMIC, a global partnership project between India and Japan, did not involve any equity holding until now.

The finer details of the Japanese commitment will be worked out between Japanese fianancial institutions and DMIC Development Corporation (DMICDC), said the official.

“It is primarily dense fog that can affect the airline operations and as per our predictions there will be around 120 hours of dense fog this year,” R K Jenamani, Director of the Meteorological office at the IGI Airport, told reporters today.

In 2016, when 119-km of four new corridors, covering major parts of the city and some parts of the NCR will be added to the existing network, Delhi metro’s total network will touch 310 km, said the officials.

Kapil Sibal, India’s telecommunications minister, said on Tuesday that over the past three months he had repeatedly asked social media executives to find mechanisms to monitor and block the release of “offensive material”. But, he added, the internet companies told him “we can’t do anything”.

Now, figures tabled in Parliament show, the city also enjoys the dubious distinction of being second-highest when it comes to number of complaints by women relating to police harassment and police apathy.