Senior BJP leader L.K. Advani, who is launching a yatra against corruption from next month, is expected to meet RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in Nagpur on Wednesday.

JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav on Tuesday met Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and is understood to have discussed the party’s future strategy in view of ally BJP’s revamped posturing as seen in its supposed preparations to project Narendra Modi as the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate.

With the Kohinoor diamond and other priceless artefacts taken by the British apparently weighing heavily on his mind, a former member of Parliament has made a strong plea to the United Kingdom to return all the “colonial loot” to set an example to the youth in that country.

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s three-day fast in Ahmedabad appears to have come as a blessing in disguise for the Congress.

Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti’s statement praising Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, which she is alleged to have made at the recently held National Integration Council (NIC) meeting in New Delhi, has pushed her in a tight situation on her home turf.

For BSP supremo and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, it was the perfect political salvo to fire — a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking reservation for Muslims — as UP heads into a poll year. After all, with nearly one-fifth of UP’s population belonging to the minority community, Ms Mayawati had decided to wield the perfect political weapon — quotas and, thus, vote-bank politics.

Amar Kant, an eminent Hindi writer whose work focuses on poverty and hardship in life, was jointly awarded the 45th Jnanpith Award for 2009 with Shrilal Shukla, veteran Hindi novelist and satirist, whose works deal with the falling moral values of Indian society. The 2010 award was conferred on Kannada poet, novelist and playwright Chandrasekhar Kambar.

UN agencies have drafted an action plan to improve the safety of journalists and combat impunity of crimes against them. The measures in the draft plan include the establishment of a coordinated inter-agency mechanism to handle issues connected to the safety of journalists.

The Intelligence Bureau says in a new report that the number of militants operating in the Kashmir Valley has dropped to around 200 — one of the biggest drops since militancy erupted there two decades ago.

As the UN General Assembly adopted the political declaration on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad reaffirmed to prevent and combat NCDs by improving accessibility and affordability of health care in a concerted manner.