The Bharatiya Janata Party’s only Muslim MP in the Lok Sabha and the party’s national spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain on Saturday hammered the Congress over its “targeting” of BJP chief Nitin Gadkari for the latter’s forceful criticism of the delay in the execution of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Unmindful of the fact that eating and drinking inside Metro station premises, more so in the trains, is not allowed, many passengers utilising the services from Noida, Sector 32 station do not seem to care enough.

Even as the strike by sanitation workers has finally been called off, the MCD seems to be caught in a catch-22 situation on the issue of payment of salaries. While on the one hand, the unions of sanitation workers are sharply divided on political lines, on the other the MCD is facing a cash crunch.

Tripping of transmission line from Wazirpur in north Delhi to Geeta Colony in east Delhi led to continuos powercuts in many south and east Delhi areas on Saturday afternoon.

A gang of undergarment clad robbers looted jewellery and cash worth over Rs 2 lakhs from half-a-dozen houses in Modinagar and Pilkhuwa towns of Ghaziabad on Saturday. So far the police officers have said that the gang committed robberies in the two towns simultaneously after Friday midnight.

The new regulation by the University Grants Commission for the appointment of principals will create more vacancies in city colleges. It has irked the All-Bengal Principals’ Council (ABPC) which pointed out that a principal could not remain in the post for more than two five-year terms.
At present, once appointed a principal serves till retirement.

Heavy rains in Haryana and Punjab have suddenly made some basic necessities a lot costlier in New Delhi: the prices of green vegetables, for instance, shot up in the past three days.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation is introducing unit area assessment of property from 2010-11 fiscal year. The proposal was passed by the mayor-in-council meeting on Saturday. So far, property tax was being calculated on the basis of a building’s notional rent. During the Left Front civic board tenure, Asian Deve-lopment Bank, the

Union minister Farooq Abdullah met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and home minister P. Chidambaram here Satur-day to seek assistance for the Jammu and Kashmir government headed by his son Omar.

India is planning to adopt the Chinese model of hybrid rice production, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said on Saturday. A Central team led by minister of state for agriculture K.V. Thomas visited China recently, collected information and submitted a report to him with his suggestions on the development of the Chinese hybrid rice.
The minister was speaking to mediapersons at the end of a two-day workshop on “Bringing Green Revolution To Eastern India.”