A host of world leaders trooped into India over the last few months, including Russia's President on Tuesday, to strengthen relations with Asia's third-largest economy, attracted by its booming market

With her flowing gown and piled up hair, Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is picture perfect on Elle magazine’s latest cover, but the photograph is reportedly at the centre of a race row for

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday expressed concern at the threat posed by home-grown terror, noting that it is something that “can become an internal intruding problem as well”.

The CBI on Friday questioned former telecom minister A. Raja in connection with its probe into the 2G spectrum scam. The agency is also expected to make some “significant arrests” in connection with its probe in a day or two.

The Congress and the UPA government left scam-tainted party MP and CWG Organising Committee chief Mr Suresh Kalmadi to fend for himself as the CBI raided Mr Kalmadi’s residences and offices in New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune on Friday over controversial Commonwealth Games deals.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday said he would take a final decision by the third week of January on South Korean giant Posco’s plan to set up a $12-billion steel plant in Orissa.

A day after the Trinamul Congress delegation met the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to complain about the misuse of the Central forces by the Marxist government, the Union home ministry mounted pressure on West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee asking him to ensure that armed cadres which are active in parts of the state should be “immediately disarmed and demobilised”.

Former communications minister A. Raja, who faced the CBI for the first time on Friday after the registration of the FIR in the 2G spectrum scam case more than a year ago, is bound to be confronted by the agency sleuths with at least 12 alleged deviations pointed out by the Supreme Court in its order laying down guidelines for the probe agencies to go deep into the matter and expediting the inquiry.

The CPI(M) on Friday called for nationwide protests against rise in prices of essential commodities, saying the government policies were leading big market players and hoarders to make huge profits. As a result of the government’s policies, “some big trading companies as well as hoarders are making huge profits while the income of common people is being looted through high prices”, the party’s politburo said in a statement here.

Consumers already groaning under the burden of an upward spiral in the prices of onions and vegetables will now have to swallow yet another bitter pill. The government, even as it battles the ongoing onion crisis, has now decided to revise the freight rates for some commodities carried by the Indian railways. This, in turn, is expected to fuel the inflationary trend.