The much-needed colour in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, this time, will come from an unexpected corner when MP Jaya Prada takes on her arch rival Mohd Azam Khan, a senior Samajwadi Party leader.

The CBI probing the food grain scam in Uttar Pradesh raided the residential and commercial premises of a former minister Vinod Kumar Singh a.k.a. Pandit Singh in Gonda.
Pandit Singh is a senior Samajwadi Party leader and was minister for medical education in the Mulayam Singh government.

Once the late Ram Singh Bishnoi was the undisputed leader of Bishnoi community in the desert region but now his son and suspended Congress MLA Malkhan Singh is struggling to come out clean in the case of missing nurse Bhanwari Devi. His younger brother Parasram Bishnoi has been languishing in Jodhpur central jail for his alleged involvement in the case while sister Indira Bishnoi disappeared after the CBI summoned her. “Our community became leader less, says S.K. Bishnoi, a community elder and social worker in Jodhpur.

The CPI(M) is facing acute dearth of young leaders who could take the mantle from old war horses like Biman Bose and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Sources revealed, that party satraps feel that at this critical juncture, young dynamic leaders could give the party a new lease of life just as Subhas Chakraborty, Shymal Chakraborty and Anil Biswas had done in the late 60s.

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Thursday said conspirators were plotting to bring down his four-year-old government. “I want to make it clear today that conspiracies are being hatched here to pack up the elected government,” Mr Gilani told a gathering at the National Arts Gallery. “But we will continue to fight for the rights of the people of Pakistan whether or not we remain in government,” Mr Gilani added.

Noting that Pakistan deliberately uses terrorism against India, a US scholar has advocated stronger ties with New Delhi and asking Islamabad to start cooperating or lose its aid and face outright isolation.

The West Bengal government on Thursday alleged that the CPI(M) was hatching a conspiracy to kill people in the state.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee herself accused the CPI(M) of spreading rumours that water supplied from the Nodakhali water supply project in South 24 Parganas was poisoned.

The recent order of the Punjab and Haryana high court unattaching five Assembly members of Haryana could well turn out to be a faceoff between the judiciary and legislator of the ruling party.

The Allahabad high court today stayed the arrest of religious leader-turned-politician and former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand who has been accused of sexual assault by an ex-disciple.

Lucknow: UP chief minister Mayawati made it clear on Thursday that her party would not support the Lokpal Bill if the CBI is not brought under its ambit.