With pressure mounting from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to revoke the stop-work order on the Maheshwar project, minister Jairam Ramesh has decided to visit the Narmada valley to get a first-hand appraisal of what is happening on the ground.

A group of 50 prominent intellectuals, including historians Ramachandra Guha, Romila Thapar, Sumit Sarkar, Dr Mushirul Hasan, former Atomic Energy Regulatory Board chairman A. Gopalakrishnan, economists Amit Bhaduri and Jean Dreze, psychologist Ashis Nandy, and scientists P.M. Bhargava, Satyajit Rath and M.V. Ramana,

The Supreme Court said that the Election Commission had communicated the guidelines on the model code to the chief secretaries of all the states and Union territories and to all the political parties in March 2009.

The Election Commission isn’t done with the recent instance of Trinamul Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kanwar Deep Singh travelling to Guwahati along with company officials who were found carrying `57 lakhs in cash just before the group boarded a private aircraft.

Former food and civil supplies minister Hartalu Halappa has been charged for raping the wife of his friend. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which was probing the rape and other criminal charges against Mr Halappa, on Wednesday filed the chargesheet against him under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code.

Despite reports of depleting brahmin support to the BSP, UP chief minister Mayawati is in no mood to give up her social engineering formula.
The appointment of Anup Misra, a brahmin officer of 1978 batch, as chief secretary is proof of this. Mr Misra’s appointment has now clearly paved the way for the elevation of Brij Lal, a dalit IPS officer, as DGP of Uttar Pradesh when the present incumbent Karamvir Singh retires in the coming months.

Former chief minister and AGP’s star campaigner Prafulla Kumar Mahanta on Wednesday dared the Election Commission of India to prove its tall claims by stopping the alleged massive use of black money by candidates of ruling Congress party in Assam.

Union health and family welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad stated that differences of opinion between DMK and the Congress over seat sharing in Tamil Nadu Assembly elections is a closed chapter and both the parties are working hard to retain power in the state.

Senior BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday predicted that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at New Delhi will collapse within six months and a mid-term elections of Lok Sabha is imminent.

BJP president Nitin Gadkari accused the Congress of betraying the people of Assam by claiming to have established the petroleum institute in Sivasagar when it was being set up at Rae Bareli, the constituency of Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.