Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi told a farmers rally here on Saturday that farmers in Uttar Pradesh were not compensated fairly for their land acquired for development projects.

Accusing Uttar Pradesh’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government of causing a loss of whopping Rs 40,000 crores by “scandalous land allotments” in Noida during last one year, the Baharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday demanded a court-monitored probe into the matter.

Winding up his four-day “padyatra” in the battle against Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused her government of acquiring farmers’ lands for golf courses and racing tracks and firing upon poor farmers when they protest.

Russia is planning to send the Olympic flame into space ahead of the 2014 winter games in Sochi, the deputy Prime Minister said here.

Though Madhya Pradesh government has reluctantly handed over the former RSS worker Sunil Joshi murder case to the National Investigative Agency (NIA), the latter has to seek court approval to move further in the matter as the state has already submitted the case for trial in Dewas court.

He is the undisputed crown prince of India’s ruling Congress, seen to bide his time before taking over the reins of government from an ageing Manmohan Singh.

India’s sacked Ukrainian athletics coach Yuri Ogorodnik on Friday blamed food supplements after six of his trainees flunked dope tests.

India on Friday said terrorism would be one of the issues in the forthcoming foreign minister-level talks with Pakistan to be held in New Delhi on July 26-27.

Sending out a strong message to his opponents, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi said here on Friday that “no politician can ever improve the condition of the farmers without approaching them directly”.

Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, who on Friday became the third Indian bowler to get 400 Test wickets, hoped the next 200 wickets would come quickly as tweakers tend to mature after turning 30.