The Congress was in a spot on Thursday with many party leaders taking contradictory positions, blaming party governments in both Bhopal and New Delhi for allowing former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson to flee India after the 1984 gas disaster.

India’s monsoon delivered normal rainfall in the past week, boosting prospects of higher farm output and lower inflation, and encouraging India to further relax curbs on rice exports.

Sri Lankan Tamil minister Douglas Devananda on Thursday regretted that “some LTTE loyalists” were raking up a Chennai criminal case involving him, in which he had already received pardon as per the Indo-Lankan Accord of 1987 following his surrendering the weapons and entering the political mainstream in the island country.

India has decided to relax visa extension norms for certain specific categories of Pakistani nationals, including Pakistani Hindus and Sikhs, Pakistan women married to Indian nationals and staying in India and Indian women married to Pak nationals and returning due to widowhood or divorce, having no male member to support them in

India is not going to discuss substantive issues like Kashmir with Pakistan in the proposed rounds of dialogue but is only attempting to create the “right atmosphere” for removing the trust deficit for a broad dialogue later.

A Court Martial has recommended dismissal of a senior IAF officer after finding him guilty of “outraging the modesty” of junior female colleague. Wing Commander H.S. Virk, posted in Agra, was tried by the General Court Martial (GCM) in Bareilly last month after a lady officer alleged that he was passing objectionable comments on her.

An empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on food headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee met in the absence of food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar to take stock of the country’s food security but deferred a decision on the draft food security bill.

The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the setting up of a new greenfield international airport at Mopa in Goa but also approved the continuation of commercial operations at the existing Dabolim Civil Enclave Airport even after the Mopa airport becomes operational.

The Cabinet committee on economic affairs on Thursday approved the proposal for initiation of second phase of Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP).

The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the introduction of the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010 to further amend the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, and the Special Marriage Act, 1954, to provide “irretrievable break down of marriage” as a ground of divorce.