More trouble seems in store for the Mayawati government with the CBI on Thursday booking Pradeep Shukla, UP board of revenue member and a former principal secretary in the family welfare department, and five others over irregularities in the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam in the state.

The Bangladesh Army has foiled a coup plot by certain “religiously fanatic” Islamist officers, serving and retired, to overthrow Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s government. Two retired officers have been arrested while a serving officer, a major, is absconding.

Under mounting pressure from the Opposition parties, women organisations, student forums and intellectual groups, Orissa agriculture minister and senior BJD leader Pradeep Maharathy stepped down from his post.

A pregnant woman on Thursday gave birth to a baby girl on the road after being denied admission by a state-run hospital.

With four more babies dying, the number of crib deaths in Malda district hospital rose to 15 in the past 48 hours even as a high-level task force for mother and child care set up by chief minister Mamata Banerjee visited the hospital on Thursday to assess the situation.

Barely a day after chief minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that her government has been able to reduce infant death rate in West Bengal by two per cent, 10 more infants died in the Malda Medical College and Hospital within 36 hours. While minister of state for health Chandrima Bhattacharya informed that seven infants reportedly died on Wednesday, the hospital sources claimed eight deaths.

S.M. Krishna on Wednesday used his visit to this former LTTE bastion, the first by any Indian leader in recent years, to assure the war-weary Tamils of northern Sri Lanka of India’s unflinching support and help as they pick up their lives following decades of bloodshed.

With the judicial inquiry commission probing the Forbesganj police firing on poor Muslims failing to submit its report within the stipulated six months, the Bihar government has extended the single-member panel’s term by a year.

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday frankly accepted the title of Lakhpati. As the long list of followers is inching closer to 1 lakh mark, Mr Abdullah wrote on the micro blogging site, “I am almost a Lakhpati”.
He is likely to touch the milestone shortly. The list of his followers have already crossed 99,900 mark.

The Indian railways can be expected to make production of proof of identity mandatory for all passengers travelling in air-conditioned classes anywhere in the country starting February 15.