NEW DELHI/WASHINGTON, June 21:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi may address a joint session of the US Congress during his coming visit  to Washington in September.
Media reports from the US capital said that Chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce had written to House Speaker John Boehner, proposing that he invite Mr Modi to address a joint session of the House and the Senate.    Mr Modi, who had been denied a visa for the US in the wake of 2002 Gujarat riots, had been invited by President Barack Obama to visit his country soon after the BJP scored a landslide victory under his leadership last month.
Mr Royce, in his letter to Mr Boehner, is understood to have underlined that India was the most important partner of the US in South Asia in every aspect – whether it be in political, economic or security relations.
He also pointed out to Mr Obama’s own observation that  the US-India relationship will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century.
(UNI)

PATNA, June 21:
Union Minister Harsh Vardhan today directed officials of All India Institute of Medical Sciences here to complete the project ‘at any cost’ by this year end so that it can be inaugurated on December 25, the birthday of former prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
“I am directing the officials to work on war-footing and get this AIIMS ready by the end of the year at any cost. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate it to the nation on December 25 on the occasion of the birthday of Atal Bihari Vajpayee,” he told reporters here.
The date assumes significance as Vajpayee, during his tenure as the prime Minister, had conceptualised the project in 2004 of having six more AIIMS in the country, including the one at Patna.
Asked about the reasons behind the delay in completion of the AIIMS Patna project, even as the deadline for it was extended five times over the last couple of years, the Minister said he wants to look ahead and forget the past.
“My motto is to forget the past and look into the future. The country had another Government for the last 10 years and so I will not comment on it,” Vardhan said.
The Union Health Minister is in the city to take stock of the construction work of AIIMS.
Interacting with faculty members of the institute, he said researchers and faculty members could play a big role in countering diseases like Kala-azarand Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES).
Vardhan will visit Muzaffarpur later in the day to inspect the situation prevailing there in the light of AES outbreak as around 130 children have succumbed to the disease and another 700 admitted in hospitals.
The disease has spread to nine districts till now, and has assumed epidemic proportions. Scientists have so far been unable to find out the reasons behind the disease, which mostly affects kids below the age of six years. (PTI)

PUNE, June 21:
The chief of right wing outfit Hindu Rashtra Sena Dhananjay Desai has been remanded in a four-day police custody by a court here for alleged involvement in murder of 28-year-old techie Mohasin Shaikh by a violent mob at suburban Hadapsar following surfacing of a Facebook post denigrating King Shivaji and late Bal Thackeray.
Desai, who has been charged with murder and conspiracy under sections 302 and 120(b), was produced yesterday before Additional Sessions Judge N P Dhote.
Setting aside a magistrate’s order, the judge granted police his custody till June 24 to further investigate the role of HRS in the conspiracy and murderous attack on Shaikh.
Dhote said the crime is of a serious nature and needed proper investigation which was only possible in police remand.
The police had filed a revision petition before the court requesting eight days of police custody of Desai for investigating the murder case.
Earlier, police had sought Dhananjay’s police custody to find out the flow of funds to the HRS, which was refused by Pune Cantonment court’s judicial magistrate (first class) P D Zambare.
On June 12, the magistrate court had remanded Desai and 20 others in 14 days judicial custody in connection with the murder till June 26.
Opposing the police remand, Desai’s lawyers Chetan Bhutada and Atul Malviya said the HRS chief was being falsely implicated in the case and did not have any role in the alleged conspiracy.
Desai was arrested by police for his alleged involvement in a criminal conspiracy that led to the murder of the IT professional on June 2 in Hadapsar.
The self-styled HRS head had already been in judicial custody in connection with another case registered in rural Pune for an inflammatory speech and circulation of provocative literature, when he was arrested by crime branch officials in the murder case. (PTI)