Five political parties lost their status as state parties on Friday, according to the Election Commission. They are the Janata Dal (United), Samajwadi Party, Pattali Makkal Katchi, Marumalarch Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Arunachal Congress Party. Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal lost its status as a national party following its poor performance in the last Jharkhand elections.

It will take not five but around 20 years to make India slum free. The government on Friday admitted before the Parliament that the high-powered Deepak Parekh Committee, constituted to suggest guidelines for implementation of the ambitious Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY), has recommended that the “duration of RAY should extend beyond five years to 20 years”. The government further said that based on the recommendations, the guidelines for the scheme are being revised.

The Gujarat CID crime has chargesheeted nine cops including three IPS officials D.G. Vanjara and Vipul Agarwal of Gujarat cadre and Dinesh M.N. of Rajasthan cadre in Tulsi Prajapati fake encounter case. However, the state government’s CID has not named minister Amit Shah in the chargesheet. The CBI has arrested state minister for home Amit Shah in Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in fairly strong remarks at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron here on Thursday, ticked off Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, saying that the recent fiasco at the latter’s Islamabad press conference (with external affairs minister S.M. Krishna) “could have been avoided”.

At a time when it was feared that the Babhali project row between the states of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra would flare up into a big confrontation, it has been confirmed that there would be a meeting of the chief ministers’ conference of the concerned states in the presence of the Prime Minister. The meeting is to be convened on August 2. It is believed that Union water resources minister P.K. Bansal too would be present at the meeting.

Suspended Bihar Janata Dal (United) MLA Sunil Pandey is set to be released from jail after the Patna high court acquitted him in a case of abduction of a renowned doctor. Pandey was sentenced to life term in the case two years ago.

Rajya Sabha MP Mani Shankar Aiyar, who hit the limelight on Tuesday for his unsavoury remarks on the Commonwealth Games, on Thursday, said, he would open his mouth on the issue only after October 15, the day when the event gets over. He also informed that he has been advised to keep mum till the Games get over.

Former inspector-general of police D.K. Panda, popularly known as “Doosri Radha” after he turned a cross dresser, has finally managed to settled his dispute with his wife Veena Panda.

Three persons, including a former call centre employee, have been arrested by the east Delhi police for allegedly kidnapping a software engineer. The police has recovered the robbed Wagon-R of the victim and also seized the Santro car used by the accused in the crime.

A seven-year-old boy died and six were injured after a four-storey illegal building came crashing down in the congested Qureshi Nagar in Kurla late on Wednesday night. People staying in the vicinity are furious, as, according to them, the authorities ignored their warnings of the danger posed by the construction.