A meeting of the State Women Commissions on Monday witnessed a heated debate after a participant from Haryana stated that the “Khap Panchayats” have been doing good work.

The Delhi high court on Monday issued contempt notice to the Indian Army Chief, Gen. V.K. Singh, for not complying with its earlier order of March 12 to grant permanent commissions to women officers who had approached it alleging gender bias in the armed forces.

Seeking to make common cause with Iran in dealing with Afghan situation, India stressed the need to avoid the return of “fundamentalist and extremist groups. While addressing the delegates participating in the strategic dialogue on “India and Iran: An enduring relationship,” foreign secretary Nirupama Rao said, “We need to move

The Congress-led ruling UPA is for aam aadmi (common man) and they mostly live in villages. Most of the flagship programmes with huge allocations are aimed at providing succour to them. But now a thought has struck the minds of policy makers in the government that people should pay user charges for using rural roads.

Though the revival of monsoon over most parts of the country perked up hopes of the farm ministry to have a bumper kharif crop, it brought to the fore the shortage of space to store it.

In order to fast-track the disposal of over 2.7 crore pending cases with the subordinate judiciary in the country, the Supreme Court on Monday decided to set up a “special bench” to monitor the improvement of judicial infrastructure with the lower courts, including the appointment of judges.

Accusing both NDA and Left parties of indulging in “sensationalism” over the issue of recent hike in fuel prices, the Congress on Monday termed the Bharat bandh called by Opposition parties a “complete flop”. The party claimed the nation-wide protest against fuel hike only received negative reaction. But both the NDA and the Left parties termed the bandh as an “unprecedented success” and said the protest against the issue would continue.

The Bharat Bandh paralysed life in the states ruled by the NDA and the Left parties. Gujarat witnessed a near total bandh. Similarly, the response to the bandh call was total in the Madhya Pradesh capital, Bhopal. Its impact was also felt in Chhattisgarh where life was completely paralysed. The bandh called by the Left Front brought West Bengal to a grinding halt.

A section of Bengal leaders in Kolkata feel that time and again the “Left parties are hotly pursuing the BJP line, which was sending a wrong signal”.
It was further argued that “since the Left parties were rapidly losing people’s support, such bandhs (like the Bharat bandh) would further erode their vote banks”.

The central leadership of the Congress Party has cleared two more names for the impending bypolls in the Telangana region. They are Mr V. Krishna Rao for Huzurabad and Mr T. Srinivas Goud for Siddipet. Now only two more names need to be cleared for two more constituencies, namely Korutla and Manchiryala.