The Amritsar police on Thursday arrested four young men in possession of plastic explosives and narcotics believed to have been smuggled across the electrified security fence from Pakistan.

The BJP on Thursday described the Congress’ response to the disclosures in the aftermath of the Bhopal gas tragedy verdict as “conspicuous silence” and obliquely alleged that former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson’s release shortly after his arrest and his leaving India were masterminded by senior Congress leaders of the time.

American writer Barbara Kingsolver has won this year’s Orange Prize for Fiction for her novel The Lacuna.
Fifty-five-year-old Kingsolver, who is based in Arizona, United States, is famous for her book, The Poisonwood Bible, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 1999.
Booker prize-winner Hilary Mantel had been a bookie favourite to win the £30,000 prize, which was presented to Kingsolver by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, at a ce

The reconstituted National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi got down to business on Thursday, holding its first meeting in the capital and flagging some of the important issues that need its attention. The nearly four-hour-long NAC meeting was followed by about a two-hour-long meeting of the members with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the evening.

The Delhi government on Thursday claimed that it has nearly utilised all the funds released from the Union urban development (UD) ministry for various schemes under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). However, if compared with other cities, the capital seems to be lagging behind in fund utilisation.

After holding back the announcement of annual power tariff for the year 2010-11, the Delhi government on Thursday indicated that it would like to see no increase in the rates till the Commonwealth Games are held in October.

A 12-year-old boy went missing under highly mysterious circumstances from outside his uncle’s residence in Kalkaji on Thursday morning.
Police officials said the boy was playing with his friends near a park in L2 block, DDA flats in Kalkaji, southeast Delhi, on Thursday morning when he went missing.

If the telecom companies have their way, India’s over 600 million telecom subcribers will have no where to go if they have a dispute with their service provider. They have so far scuttled any move to have an ombudsman and the telecom department had also rejected the idea of an ombudsman when it was first mooted by the telecom regulatory authority.

Raising doubts that former Goa tourism minister Mickky Pacheco’s girlfriend Nadia Torrado had died after taking rat poison by mistake, the South Goa district and sessions court on Thursday rejected Mr Pacheco’s anticipatory bail petition and said Ms Torrado might have been induced to consume poison.

The Congress was in a spot on Thursday with many party leaders taking contradictory positions, blaming party governments in both Bhopal and New Delhi for allowing former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson to flee India after the 1984 gas disaster.