The Congress on Friday virtually asked the Centre for a ban on the RSS in the light of the reported confession of Swami Aseemanand about his involvement in Samjhauta blast. It also coined a term of “Sanghi aantankwad” (RSS terrorism) charging that it is weakening the government’s campaign against the cross-border terrorism across the world.

A 27-year-old man allegedly attempted self immolation on Friday morning near Mandi House in New Delhi area, the police said. The incident took place when the victim, Rajesh, was returning from Bengali Market in his Esteem car with his mother, two younger brothers and a domestic help.

Prime accused in the Mecca Masjid blast case and top right-wing outfit activist, Swami Aseemanand, has confessed that he and several other top brass of radical Hindu outfits had a direct role in Malegaon and Ajmer blasts.
Swami Aseemanand has also confessed that he had information about the plan of 2007 Samjhauta Express blast.

The Delhi high court has rapped an additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) for acquitting custom officers in a corruption case.
Coming down heavily on the ACMM, Justice Shiv Narayan Dhingra said, “The learned ACMM seemed to have acted more like a clerk than like a judge and was happy in discharging everybody on the ground that there was no investigation on the point how the goods were allegedly exported.”

The city continued to reel under cold wave conditions with the lowest temperature being recorded at 4.3 degrees Celsius (three degrees below normal). The maximum temperature was recorded at 15.6º Celsius (five degrees below normal). Dense fog set in around Thursday midnight with minimum visibility reduced to less than 50 metres at the Indira Gandhi International airport.

Onion prices are likely to come down a bit following arrival of fresh crop and the subsidy offered by the Central government to Nafed. Onions were selling in the range of `60-70 per kg in retail markets in the city, while Mother Dairy outlets sold them at `50 per kg.

Performing arts groups in the country have got a much needed boost from the ministry of culture with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announcing a studio theatre scheme for them in the capital on Friday.

Even as the Congress has decided to tread carefully on the Telangana issue before venturing to give its opinion, the Opposition parties at the national level are clearly a divided house over the controversial issue.

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday, referring to the Srikrishna Committee recommendations, said that the report itself has rejected the first three options as “non-practicable”. The committee has placed a set of six options before the Centre.

A Delhi police sub-inspector, who was to retire from services this year, committed suicide on Thursday by shooting himself allegedly with his service pistol. Initial investigations in the case revealed that the deceased, Ajit Singh was going through depression due to family and financial problems.