At 79, Dominique Lapierre shows no signs of slowdown. The author and philanthropist is in India to celebrate the 75,000th tuberculosis patient he has cured and the 10,000th child he has taught to read and write. His epic account of South African history, A Rainbow in the Night (Full Circle), was launched by French ambassador Jerome Bonafont, at the India Habitat Centre on Monday evening.

Amidst the stalemate in Parliament over the issue of setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into alleged 2-G spectrum allocation scam, senior BJP leader L.K. Advani on Sunday accused the government of lacking political will to combat corruption. He also reminded the government of its poll promise of bringing back the black money stashed away in Swiss banks and asked the Centre to ratify the UN convention against corruption.

The CPI has sought the intervention of the Union home ministry alleging that its party cadres and supporters are being “harassed, tortured, brutally assaulted and arrested” by the Chhattisgarh police and CRPF who are branding them as “Maoists’’. The CPI on Sunday demanded the home ministry to “question the Chhattisgarh government’s role in targeting the party and arresting its elected leaders and cadres.”

The government has said that foreign intelligence agencies are making constant efforts to set up bases in the country.
“Government is aware of the efforts being made by foreign intelligence agencies to operate in India,” minister of state for home Ajay Maken said. “Government is constantly monitoring activities of the hostile agencies to subvert individuals and create agents of influence in different institutions both in the public and private domain and has been taking action to neutralise the same wherever necessary,” Mr Maken told Parliament.

The mood is upbeat in ruling BJP circles as chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan completes five years as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on Monday.
The state BJP president Prabhat Jha described Mr Chouhan’s tenure, stretching over two successive terms, as five-years of political stability. In the past, BJP chief

Corruption issue which has damaged the credibility of two national parties and some of their allies, could dominate a three-day AICC plenary session to be held in Delhi the third week of December.

Delhi Assembly’s deputy speaker got a taste of the poor law and order situation in the city when thieves made away with his recently-purchased car from outside his son’s residence in east Delhi on Sunday.

Four persons, including three firemen, were injured when a portion of a building which was engulfed by flames on Sunday evening, collapsed near the crowded Chawri Bazar market in Old Delhi.

Rohini Court additional sessions judge (ASJ) Dr Kamini Lau has in a recent order directed the Tihar Jail authorities to provide medical help to two robbery convicts, as they were drug addicts and indulged in crime to buy narcotic.

Investigators are yet to identify the assailants who gangraped a girl from Northeast with the police scanning the call records of hundreds of mobile users who were receiving signal from some mobile towers in Dhaula Kuan area even as no arrests have been made in the case so far.