India’s first woman railway porter has been appointed in Fatehpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Usha Devi, who joined work recently, is excited as well as nervous about her job.

The Congress in UP is getting ready to serve old wine in new bottles. After publicly denouncing caste-based politics, the UP Congress is promoting just that — albeit, under a new cover. The Congress will now take out seven yatras in Lucknow on June 30. Each yatra will be dedicated to one particular community.

Four ministers in the Mayawati government will move the Allahabad high court to seek quashing of an FIR, ordered against them by a lower court, in connection with the publication of a objectionable article in a newspaper of which they are patrons.

The BJP has asked UP chief minister Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav to explain their stand regarding the UPA government in view of the recent hike in prices of petroleum products.

Saat pheras (seven rounds of the holy fire) at Hindu weddings are passé. It is now time for eight pheras. Gayatri Parivar priests will now make couples take yet another vow at the time of marriage, the eighth being not to indulge in gender discrimination and female feticide.

If you live in Kanpur and think that you can roll out of bed and proceed on your morning walk, you are mistaken. The authorities at the famous Green Park stadium have now implemented a dress code for all morning walkers.

The ice has started breaking and there has been a thaw in UP chief minister Mayawati’s relations with governor B.L. Joshi. The chief minister on Thursday evening attended a musical programme in Raj Bhavan — something that she is not known to do very often.

Murder inside a high security jail may sound strange but the deaths of two jail inmates in the Ghazipur district jail in Uttar Pradesh this week indicates that the two did not die a natural death.

BJP MP Varun Gandhi’s growing popularity in UP has finally forced Mr Vinay Katiyar, the original Hindu firebrand leader in the BJP, to come out of hibernation. Mr Katiyar, after a long hiatus, will be addressing a rally in Ambedkar Nagar on June 25. Mr Katiyar had unsuccessfully tried to contest the last Lok Sabha elections from Ambedkar Nagar and had lost the seat to the BSP.

UP chief minister Mayawati’s decision not to hold local bodies’ elections on party lines has started stoking fires in the Opposition camp. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to observe June 26 as Loktantra Bachao Diwas while the Congress will observe a “black day” to register its protest against the decision. Congress men will also burn the copies of the government order in this regard and wear a black band on their arms.