Anonymous call threatens to kill PM

An anonymous call threatening to kill Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee have prompted security agencies to conduct searches in the National Capital Region to identify the caller, sources said today.

The call made from a mobile phone was received at the Delhi Police Control Room last evening, they said, adding that the caller threatened to kill Singh and Vajpayee.

During investigations, sources said, the number was traced to be active in Ghaziabad.

However, they said, searches did not yield much result as the address used to procure the SIM card was found to be fake. The phone number, according to records, belonged to one Ram Avatar residing in Ghaziabad''s Sanjay Nagar.

Raghubir Lal, Superintendent of Police (Ghaziabad), said a search was conducted in the area but could not find the address as it was fake.

Freida Pinto bares it all for 'Immortals'

Buzz has it that Slumdog Millionaire fame Freida Pinto will be seen doing intimate love making scenes in her upcoming film 'Immortals'.

The film, according to reports is a re-worked version of the Greek myth, "Theseus and the Minotaur" and is set to hit theaters this November. The movie also stars Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke and John Hurt.
The teaser is quite sensous in nature and promises skin-show on the part of the actress. This would be her first makeout scene in a movie since her debut. Freida Pinto stars as the sultry Phaedra, an oracle who joins Theseus on his quest to thwart the evil King Hyperion.

In the scene Pinto strips off her loose bright red robe and indulging in some steamy action with Cavill. The scenes also capture the girl without the robe from the back.

White House won't show bin Laden photo

The White House has decided not to release photos of dead al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, officials said on Wednesday as a senator told reporters she had seen one of the pictures.

President Barack Obama "has decided against photo release," a U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry told Reuters he had been told the photographs will not be released. "I believe it is absolutely the right decision," Kerry said.

"Absent some major challenge to the fact of death, there is no clamor that I can discern requiring proof of death and I think it would in fact create a kind of ghoulish exploitation that is not appropriate ... could encourage repercussions in parts of the world..."

The Obama administration has been wrestling with whether to make public what it calls a gruesome image of bin Laden's corpse, even as Islamic militants are questioning whether U.S. forces really killed him.

U.S. forces who raided the compound where bin Laden was living in Pakistan on Monday shot bin Laden in the face, one U.S. official says. This official said on Wednesday that bits of brain are visible in photos of the corpse.

Senator Kelly Ayotte told reporters at the Capitol the photo she saw confirmed bin Laden's identity. She said it was a facial shot and that another senator showed it to her.

"I saw a photo of him deceased, the head area. Obviously he had been wounded ... I can't give any better description than that," she said.

Asked if the photo confirmed the identity of the dead man as bin Laden, Ayotte said, "My view, yes."

"Obviously I'm not an expert in this area. But ... since he's such a well known figure, when you see the picture, it clearly has his features," said Ayotte, a Republican.

Ayotte spoke to reporters after CIA Director Leon Panetta gave a closed-door briefing on bin Laden's death to senators on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees. But there was no indication that she had seen the photo during that forum.

US LAWMAKERS DISAGREE

Other senators who attended the briefing said they had not seen bin Laden photos, and one aide said none were shown.

U.S. lawmakers disagree over whether the photos of bin Laden should be released to the public. Ayotte said they should -- to help quash any doubts about whether bin Laden was dead.

"Unfortunately, we've seen that in many instances around the world there can be conspiracy theories about these types of events. So I think it's important in terms of closure, that while nobody wants to see disturbing photos, the closure aspect I think is very important."

But House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said releasing the photos "will only serve to inflame opinion in the Middle East."

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Concerns raised over Osama's shooting

The killing of Osama bin Laden when he was unarmed has raised concerns the United States may have gone too far in acting as policeman, judge and executioner of the world's most wanted man.

But for several Muslim leaders, the more unsettling issue is whether the al Qaeda leader's burial at sea was contrary to Islamic practice.

The White House said on Tuesday that bin Laden had resisted the U.S. team which stormed his Pakistan hideout and that there had been concerns he would "oppose the capture operation".

Spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify what sort of resistance bin Laden offered but added: "We expected a great deal of resistance and were met with a great deal of resistance. There were many other people who were armed ... in the compound."

Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told German TV the operation could have incalculable consequences in the Arab world at a time of unrest there.

"It was quite clearly a violation of international law."

It was a view echoed by high-profile Australian human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson.

"It's not justice. It's a perversion of the term. Justice means taking someone to court, finding them guilty upon evidence and sentencing them," Robertson told Australian Broadcasting Corp television from London.

"This man has been subject to summary execution, and what is now appearing after a good deal of disinformation from the White House is it may well have been a cold-blooded assassination."

Robertson said bin Laden should have stood trial, just as World War Two Nazis were tried at Nuremburg or former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was put on trial at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague after his arrest in 2001.

"The last thing he wanted was to be put on trial, to be convicted and to end his life in a prison farm in upstate New York. What he wanted was exactly what he got - to be shot in mid-jihad and get a fast track to paradise and the Americans have given him that."

Gert-Jan Knoops, a Dutch-based international law specialist, said bin Laden should have been arrested and extradited to the United States.

"The Americans say they are at war with terrorism and can take out their opponents on the battlefield," Knoops said. "But in a strictly formal sense, this argument does not stand up."

A senior Muslim cleric in New Delhi, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, said U.S. troops could have easily captured bin Laden.

"America is promoting jungle rule everywhere, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan or Libya. People have remained silent for long but now it has crossed all limits."

BURIAL AT SEA CONCERN

Son Had, spokesman for Jema'ah Ansharut Tauhid, the Islamic group founded by Indonesian firebrand Abu Bakar Bashir, said it was clear that bin Laden had become a martyr.

"In Islam, a man who died....in fighting for sharia will earn the highest title for mankind other than a prophet, that is

a martyr. Osama is a fighter for Islam, for sharia."

But for many Muslim leaders the greater concern was bin Laden's burial at sea, not land. His body was taken to an aircraft carrier where U.S. officials said it was buried at sea, according to Islamic rites.

I.A. Rehman, an official with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said it was more important than the issue of how bin Laden was killed.

"The fact that he was not armed is a smaller thing...There will be more focus on whether he was buried in an Islamic way. There has been reaction from Islamic clerics that he was not properly buried and this will be discussed for some time."

Saudi Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obaikan, an adviser to the Saudi Royal Court, was more direct.

"That is not the Islamic way. The Islamic way is to bury the person in land (if he has died on land) like all other people."

Amidhan, a member of Indonesia's Ulema Council (MUI), the highest Islamic authority in the world's biggest Muslim society, said he was more concerned about the burial that the killing.

"Burying someone in the ocean needs extraordinary situation. Is there one?," he told Reuters.

"If the U.S. can't explain that, then it appears just like dumping an animal and that means there is no respect for the man ... and what they did can incite more resentment among Osama's supporters."

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington, Michael Perry in Sydney, Alistair Scrutton in New Delhi, Rebecca Conway in Islamabad, Olivia Rondonwu in Jakarta, Aaron Gray-Block in Amsterdam; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Live: India, business as it unfolds

The Indian markets were slightly more stable yesterday even though it closed down, it's eighth consecutive fall, their longest losing streak in more than two years. The US markets closed down as commodities continued to pressurise global markets, while the Asian markets opened in the red. It looks like the Indian indices are headed for a day of flat trade given the complete lack of cues. Follow our live updates to catch all the business and market action real time.

8:15 am: India's fight against inflation could knock about half a percentage point off economic growth in Asia's third-largest economy this fiscal year, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Wednesday, a day after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised rates. "It may be around... 8.5 percent. So, it will be about half a percent," he told Reuters when asked about the impact of stubbornly high inflation on gross domestic product growth.

8:12 am: As many as 1,100 Air India flights have been canceled as nearly half of the national carrier's 1,600 pilots continued their strike for the eighth day Wednesday with losses touching Rs.85 crore, an official said.

8:10 am: Facebook and Google Inc are separately considering a tie-up with Skype after the web video conferencing service delayed its initial public offering, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.

8:00 am: Silver prices fell 1 percent to a one-month low, after the CME Group hiked margin requirement on COMEX silver again, while gold held steady. COMEX silver futures fell 1.2 percent to a one-month low of $38.91. Spot silver fell by 1 percent to $38.92.