Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani are “most likely to fly together” and watch the Pakistan-India cricket World Cup semi-final with PM Manmohan Singh in Mohali on Wednesday, official sources said.

India has unilaterally decided to increase the period of stay for persons visiting Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) to six months with multiple entries.

The RTI activist Akhil Gogoi who has launched a crusade against the ‘corrupt’ Congress led government in Assam, on Saturday announced to lodge a formal complaint against high-profile minister Himanta Biswa Sarm for violating the model code of conduct.

The anti-talks faction of outlawed Ulfa led by Paresh Baruah has called for a 12-hour Assam bandh on Monday to protest the proposed visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to campaign for his party in first phase of polling on April 4.

The battlefield has got a bit sticky at the Krishnarayapuram reser
ved constituency in Karur district because the voter is likely to get confused between the DMK and the AIADMK candidates.

Both the major Dravidian parties are keen on capturing power through freebies and not eager to render justice to people on the development or welfare front, said senior BJP leader and former national president Bangaru Laxman. “The DMK and AIADMK are vying with each other and trying to outwit each other by announcing freebies. They have failed to address the basic problems of the people. Development has been neglected and they are only trying to survive on freebies,” he said.

Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi here on Saturday released the election manifesto of the party in which it committed refugee status to all those non-Muslims who fled erstwhile East Pakistan fearing prosecution.

A group of Gandhians, 20 in number, is doing its bit campaigning for total prohibition and against cash-for-votes.
Through its Kanyakumari-Chennai yatra, the team throws light on the spiralling ill-effects the money-spinning Tasmac has brought to poverty-stricken families.

Himaval Bhadrananda, the ‘gun swami’ (thokku swami), who created headlines by pointing a pistol at himself inside a police station, has now manifested in a political avatar to “to change the face of Kollam”.

The revolutionary poet Vayalar Ramavarma has inspired generations of Communist leaders and workers through his poems and songs.
But his son, Vayalar Sarathchandra Varma, who has also proved his mettle as a lyricist, has no qualms penning promotional songs for candidates of any hue — be it red, saffron or the tricolour.