A local court on Wednesday adjourned till April 5 the hearing in the Sankararaman murder case, in which Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi and his junior Vijayendra Saraswathi are the prime accused.

Ahead of the imminent April 13 Assembly elections, T. Thiagarajan, Parliamentary secretary to Puducherry chief minister V. Vaithilingam, on Saturday resigned as a nominated legislator in the Puducherry Assembly, the fourth MLA to quit his post in 2011.

At a time when his party colleagues are clamouring for poll tickets, a Puducherry minister has shown he is a different breed by declaring retirement from active politics.
On record, Malladi Krishna Rao of Yanam, an enclave of the Union Territory situated in Andhra Pradesh, says he is quitting with a sense of fulfillment as he has done all that he wished for his constituency, but his aides insist that he wants to stay away because politics is becoming increasingly corrupt.

The opposition's demand for resignation of telecom minister A.